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POEMS 



:Kb tbe Same Butbor, 


PUBLISHED SEPARATELY! 


THE WINTER HOUR, 


AND OTHER POEMS 


(1892) 


SONGS OF LIBERTY, 


AND OTHER POEMS 


(1897) 



POEMS 



BY / 

ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 
1902 



uMi 

CONGRESS, 

Two Co^ieH Reccivco 

MAY. 14 1902 

Copyright entry 

CLASS <*-' XXC. No. 

COPY B. 






Copyright, 1892, 1897, 1902, by 
Robert Underwood Johnson 



THE DEVINNE PRESS 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



I. The Winter Hour, and Other Poems. 

Invocation : To the Gorse i 

The Winter Hour 3 

With Interludes : 

Hearth-Song. 

The Lost Rose. 

A Madonna of Dagnan-Bouveret. 

Love in Italy. 

A Spring Prelude 28 

Before the Blossom 30 

Love in the Calendar 32 

A September Violet 34. 

September's Eve 36 

October 38 

In November 39 

On Nearing Washington 41 

"As a Bell in a Chime " 42 

In the Dark 44 

Good Measure of Love 47 

Noblesse. Oblige 49 

On a Candidate Accused of Youth. (Theodore 

Roosevelt: 1886.) 50 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Washington Hymn. (Sung at the laying of 
the corner-stone of the Washington Me- 
morial Arch, New York, May 30, 1890.) . 51 
To Ralph Waldo Emerson. (On the Death of 

Garfield.) 53 

Illusions 55 

To-morrow 56 

Inscription for a Burial Urn 57 

Quality .58 

Luck and Work 60 

On a Great Poet's Obscurity 61 

Written in Emerson's Poems . . . . . . 62 

Amiel. (The "Journal Intime.") 64 

"The Guest of the Evening." (Read at the 
dinner to Richard Watson Gilder, on his 

birthday, February 8, 1884.) 65 

Salvini .66 

For Tears 67 

Apprehensions .68 

Browning at Asolo 69 

At Sea 71 

Moods of the Soul 72 

I. In Time of Victory. 
II. In Time of Defeat. 

To Leonora. (At her Debut, October 18,1891.) 75 

Herbert Mapes. (Drowned August 23, 1891.) 76 

A Wish for New France 77 

Divided Honors. (Written for the dinner to 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

James Whitcomb Riley at Indianapolis, 

October 18, 1888.) 78 

A Tracer for J*** B******** 83 

II. Songs of Liberty, and Other Poems. 

Apostrophe to Greece. (Inscribed to the 
Greek People on the Seventy-fifth Anni- 
versary of their Independence.) .... 93 

Song of the Modern Greeks • 103 

To the Housatonic at Stockbridge . . . .105 

Farewell to Italy 108 

A Chopin Fantasy 112 

In Tesla's Laboratory 116 

The Wistful Days 117 

"Love Once was Like an April Dawn " . . .118 

An Irish Love-Song 119 

"Oh, Waste no Tears " 121 

Her Smile 1 23 

Song for the Guitar 124 

Ursula 125 

A Dark Day 126 

The Surprised Avowal 127 

The Blossom of the Soul 129 

"I Journeyed South to Meet the Spring " . .130 
Paraphrases from the Servian of Zmai 
Iovan Iovanovich (after Literal Transla- 
tions by Nikola Tesla) : 

Introductory Note on Zmai by Mr. Tesla . 135 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Three Giaours .141 

Luka Filipov 146 

A Mother of Bosnia 150 

The Monster 154 

Two Dreams 157 

Mysterious Love 159 

The Coming of Song 161 

Curses 163 

A Fairy from the Sun-shower 164 

" Why," you ask, " has not the Servian Per- 
ished? " 165 

" I Begged a Kiss of a Little Maid " . . . 166 

Why the Army Became Quiet 167 

The Gipsy Praises his Horse 168 

The Voice of Webster 177 

Hands across Sea 191 

III. Italian Rhapsody, and Other Poems. 

Poems of Italy: 

Italian Rhapsody 207 

The Hour of Awe . .215 

Titian's Two Loves, in the Borghese . . . .217 

Poems on Public Events : 

The Listening Sword 221 

Dewey at Manila 222 

The Welcome of Our Tears 227 

An English Mother 229 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

"The White Man's Burden" 232 

On Reading of Atrocities in War 234 

The Keeper of the Sword 236 

Remember Waring ! 237 

Poems of Heart and Soul: 

To One Born on the Last Day of November . 243 

Music and Love 245 

At a Concert 246 

After the Song (To E. J. W.) .247 

Song for Youth 248 

Song of Remembrance 250 

Star-Song 251 

Song for a Wedding-day 252 

5* With a Toast to the Bride 253 

To June 255 

A Lover's Answer 256 

The Guest 257 

To One who Complained of a Lover's Per- 
sistence 258 

Interpreters 259 

The Tryst 260 

" Love the Conqueror Came to Me " . . . .261 

The Stronger Summons 263 

The Flower of Fame 264 

The Dread before Great Joy 266 

Reincarnation 269 

Premonitions 270 



I 

THE WINTER HOUR 

AND OTHER POEMS 



TO RICHARD WATSON GILDER 



INVOCATION: TO THE GORSE 



"When the gorse is out of bloom, then love is out of season.' 3 

English Proverb. 



Hardy gorse, that all year long 
Blooms upon the English moor, 
Let me set thee at the door 

Of this little book of song. 

When the dreary winter lowers, 
Vainly dost thou seek a fellow 
To thy blossom brave and yellow — 

Color of the cheeriest flowers. 

Thou of love perennial art 

Such a symbol that they say : 
" When no gorse-bloom greets the day, 
There 's no love in any heart. ,, 



INVOCA TION 



Thus all days are Love's and thine. 
Spicy flower on thorny branch, 
In Love's service thou art stanch 

Wilt thou, wilding, enter mine ? 



THE WINTER HOUR 



THE WINTER HOUR 



Of all the hours of day or night 
Be mine the winter candle-light, 
When Day's usurpers of Love's throne — 
Fame, Pride, and tyrant Care — are flown, 
And hearts are letters of hid desire 
Yielding their secrets at the fire. 
Now beauty in a woman's face 
Glows with a sympathetic grace, 
And friend draws closer unto friend, 
Like travelers near a journey's end; 
In casual talk some common hope 
Finds fresher wing and farther scope ; 
The eye has language fit to speak 
Thoughts that by day 't were vain to seek 
Out of their silence ; and the hand 
Grasps with a comrade's sure demand. 
Pile high the winter's cheer and higher, — 
The world is saved, not lost, by fire! 



THE WINTER HOUR 



HEARTH- SONG 

When November's night comes down 
With a dark and sudden frown, 
Like belated traveler chill 
Hurrying o'er the tawny hill, — 

Higher, higher 
Heap the pine-cones in a pyre ! 
Where 's a better friend than fire? 

Song 's but solace for a day; 
Wine 's a traitor not to trust; 
Love 's a kiss and then away; 
Time *s a peddler deals in dust. 

Higher, higher 
Pile the driftwood in a pyre ! 
Where 's a firmer friend than fire ? 

Knowledge was but born to-night; 
Wisdom 's to be born to-morrow ; 
One more log — and banish sorrow, 
One more branch — the world is bright. 

Higher, higher 
Crown with balsam -boughs the pyre ! 
Where 's an older friend than fire ? 



THE WINTER HOUR 



II 



O silent hour that sacred is 

To our sincerest reveries ! — 

When peering Fancy fondly frames 

Swift visions in the oak-leaved flames; 

When Whim has magic to command 

Largess and lore from every land, 

And Memory, miser-like, once more 

Counts over all her hoarded store. 

Now phantom moments come again 

In a long and lingering train, 

As not content to be forgot — 

(O Death! when I remember not 

Such moments, may my current run, 

Alph-like, to thy oblivion ! ) : 

The summer bedtime, when the sky — 

The boy's first wonder — gathers nigh, 

And cows are lowing at the bars, 

And fireflies mock the early stars 

That seem to hang just out of reach — 

Like a bright thought that lacks of speech; 

The wistful twilight's tender fall, 

When to the trundle comes the call 



THE WINTER HOUR 

Of fluting robins, mingling sweet 
With voices down the village street ; 
The drowsy silence, pierced with fear 
If evil-omened owl draw near, 
Quaking with presage of the night; 
The soft surrender when, from sight 
Hid like a goddess in a cloud, 
Comes furtive Sleep, with charm endowed 
To waft the willing child away 
Far from the margin of the day, 
Till chanticleer with roystering blare 
Of reveille proclaims the glare. 
Remember? — how can one forget 
(Since Memory 's but Affection's debt) 
Those faery nights that hold the far, 
Soft rhythm of the low guitar, 
When not more sweetly zephyr blows 
And not more gently Afton flows 
Than the dear mother's voice, to ease 
The hurts of day with brook and breeze, 
To soothing chords that haunt the strings 
Like shadows of the song she sings ! 
And as the music's lullaby 
Locks down at last the sleepy eye, 



THE WINTER HOUR 

Green visions of a distant hill 

The fancy of the singer fill, 

While spreads Potomac's pausing stream, 

And moonlight sets her heart adream 

Of that old time when love was made 

With valentine and serenade. 

Now, too, come bedtimes when the stair 
Was never climbed alone. — Ah, where, 
Beyond the midnight and the dawn, 
Has now that other footstep gone? 
Does sound or echo more reveal 
When thirty winters may not steal 
That still-returning tread, — that voice, 
That made the timid child rejoice 
Against the terrors of the wind, — 
That tender tone that smoothed the mind? 
Great heart of pity ! it was then 
God seemed a father, denizen 
Of His own world, not chained to feet 
Of some far, awful judgment-seat. 
Then was revealed the reverent soul 
Whom creed nor doubt could from the 
goal 



8 THE WINTER HOUR 

Of goodness swerve; who need not bend 
To be of each just cause the friend. 
Of whose small purse and simple prayer 
The neediest had the largest share; 
Beloved of child, and poor, and slave, 
Nor yet more lovable than brave; 
Whom place could not allure, nor pelf, — 
To all men generous save himself; 
Whose passion Freedom was — with no 
Heat-lightning rage devoid of blow, 
But as a bridegroom might defend 
His chosen, to the furious end. 

Still other moments come apace, 
Each with fond, familiar face: 
The pleasures of an inland boy 
To whom great Nature was a toy 
For which all others were forsook — 
A spirit blithesome as a brook 
Whose song in ripples crystalline 
Doth flow soft silences between; 
The dormant soul's slow wakenings 
To dimly-apprehended things; 



THE WINTER HOUR 

The sudden vision in the night 
As by a conflagration's light; 
The daily miracle of breath \ 
The awe of battle and of death ; 
The tears of grief at Sumter's gun, 
The tears of joy when war was done, 
And all the fainting doubt that masked 
As hope when news of war was asked. 
And oh! that best-remembered place, 
That perfect moment's melting grace, — 
The look, the smile, the touch, the kiss, 
The halo of self-sacrifice, — 
When Nature's passion, bounteous June, 
To Love's surrender added boon, 
As though the heir of every age 
Had come into his heritage. 

THE LOST ROSE 

There was a garden sweet and gay, 
Where rarest blossoms did delay 
The look that Fanny bent to find 
The flower fairest to her mind, 
Till, at her word, I plucked for her 
A rose of York -and- Lancaster. 



io THE WINTER HOUR 

The red did with the white agree, 

Like passion blent in purity ; 

And as she blushed and blushed the more, 

Till she was like the bloom she bore, 

I said, " Dear heart, I too prefer 

The rose of York-and- Lancaster." 

'T is years ago and miles away ! 
For oh ! nor rose nor maid could stay 
To freshen other Junes. And yet 
How few who do not quite forget ! — ■ 
Or know to which the words refer : 
"Sweet rose of York-and-Lancaster." 

In vain, when roses do appear 
Upon the bosom of the year, 
I search the tangle and the town 
Among the roses of renown, 
And still the answer is — " Oh, sir, 
We know no York-and-Lancaster." 

But ah, my heart, it knows the truth, 
And where was sown that seed of youth ; 
And though the world have lost the rose, 
There 's still one garden where it grows — 
Where every June it breathes of her, 
My rose of York-and-Lancaster. 



THE WINTER HOUR II 

ni 

Now call the Muses' aid to flout 

The bleak storm's roaring rage without; 

And bring it hail, or bring it snow, 

It shall be Love's delight to show 

What Fire and two defenders dare 

Against the legions of the air, 

Whose sharpest arrows shall not find 

Cleft in the armor of the mind. 

Why dread we Winter's deep distress, 

His pale and frigid loneliness, 

When here at hand are stored, in nooks, 

All climes, all company, in books ! 

A moving tale for every mood, 

Shakspere for all, — the fount and food 

Of gentle riving, — Fancy's link 

'Twixt what we are and what we think, — 

Fellow to stars that nightly plod 

Old Space, yet kindred to the clod. 

Choose now from his world's wizard play 

What is frolicsome and gay; 

'T was for such evening he divined 

Not Juliet but Rosalind. 



12 THE WINTER HOUR 

Put the storied sorrow down, — 

Not to-night, with Jove-like frown, 

Shall the mighty Tuscan throw 

Fateful lightnings at his foe, 

Nor Hawthorne bend his graceful course 

To follow motive to its source. 

No, let gladness greet the ear: 

Cervantes' wit, or Chaucer's cheer, 

Or Lamb's rich cordial, pure and sweet, 

Where aromatic tinctures meet; 

Or princely Thackeray, whose pages 

Yield humor wiser than the sages; 

Or, set in cherished place apart, 

Poets that keep the world in heart: 

Milton's massive lines that pour 

Like waves upon a windward shore; 

Wordsworth's refuge from the crowd — 

The peace of noon-day's poised cloud; 

That flaming torch a jealous line 

Passed on to Keats from Beauty's shrine; 

Visions of Shelley's prophet-soul, 

That, seeing part, could sing the whole, 

Most like a lark that mounts so high 

He sees not earth but from the sky. 



THE WINTER HOUR 13 

And of the bards who in the grime 
And turmoil of our changing time 
Have kept the faith of men most pure 
The three whose harps shall last endure : 
Browning, Knight of Song, — so made 
By Nature's royal accolade, — 
Whose lines, as life-blood full and warm, 
Search for the soul within the form, 
And in the treasures of whose lore 
Is Love, Love, ever at the core; 
Tennyson, of the silver string, 
Wisest of the true that sing, 
And truest singer of the wise; 
And he whose " stairway of surprise " 
Soars to an outlook whence appear 
All best things, fair, and sure, and near. 



IV 



Upon the wall some impress fine 
Of Angelo's majestic line — 
Seer or sibyl, dark with fate; 
Near, and all irradiate, 



14 THE WINTER HOUR 

Bellini's holy harmonies, 

Bringing the gazer to his knees; 

One group to hint from what a height 

Titian with color dowers the sight; 

A pageant of Carpaccio, 

Flushed with an autumn sunset-glow ; 

Then, of Luini's pensive race, 

The Columbine's alluring grace; 

And, echo of an age remote, 

Beato's pure and cloistered note. 

And be not absent from the rest 

Some later flame of beauty (blest 

As a new star), lest it be said 

That Art, that had its day, is dead. 

Let Millet speak in melting tone — 

Voicing the life that once was stone, 

Ere Toil had found another dawn 

Of Bethlehem at Barbizon. 

Nor is it winter while Dupre 

With daring sunlight leads the way 

Into the woodland rich and dim; 

Who love the forest, follow him; 

And they who lean the ear to reach 

The whispering breath of Nature's speech, 



THE WINTER HOUR 15 

May with Daubigny wait the night 
Beside a lake of lambent light 
And marged darkness — at the hour 
(Soul of the evening !) when the power 
Of man, that morn with empire shod, 
Is shattered by a thought of God ! 
And ah, one more : we will not wait 
For Death to let us call him great, 
But, taking counsel of the heart 
Stirred by his pure and perfect art, 
Among the masters make a place 
For Dagnan's fair Madonna's face. 



A MADONNA OF DAGNAN-BOUVERET 

Oh, brooding thought of dread ! 
Oh, calm of coming grief! 
Oh, mist of tears unshed 
Above that shining head 
That for an hour too brief 
Lies on thy nurturing knee ! 
How shall we pity thee, 
Mother of sorrows — sorrows yet to be ! 



THE WINTER HOUR 

That babyhood unknown 
With all of bright or fair 
That lingers in our own 
By every hearth has shone. 
Each year that light we share 
As Bethlehem saw it shine. 
Be ours the comfort thine, 
Mother of consolations all divine ! 



Nor be the lesser arts forgot 
On which Life feeds and knows it not, 
That everywhere from roof to portal 
Beauty may speak of the immortal: 
Forms that the fancy over-fill; 
Colors that give the sense a thrill; 
Soft lights that fall through opal glass 
On mellow stuffs and sturdy brass; 
Corners of secrecy that invite 
Comfort, the handmaid of Delight; 
The very breath of sculptures old 
Held poised within a perfect mold; 



THE WINTER HOUR 17 

A dainty vase of Venice make, 

Fashioned for its one rose's sake — 

Ay, winter's miracle of flowers 

To cheat the mood and mask the hours: 

Love's velvet-petaled pledge of June, 

That, on the wings of Passion strewn, 

Made courtly Persia conqueror 

Of thrice the world she lost in war; — 

Jonquils, that Tuscan sunshine hold 

Within their happy hearts of gold; — 

Narcissus, such as still are found 

By Marathon's mountain-envied mound — 

Food of the soul, well bought with bread, 

As sage Hippocrates hath said. 

All these perchance shall faintly yield 

Odors from some Sicilian field 

Where young Theocritus deep-strayed 

In blooms celestial — where his shade, 

Haunting his storied Syracuse, 

Finds balm for his neglected Muse. 

Add wanton smilax to entwine 

Your Dancing Faun or God of Wine, 

And you shall summon in a band 

The joys of every summer land. 



1 8 THE WINTER HOUR 



VI 



But there 's a vision stirs the heart 

Deeper than books or flowers or art, — 

When Music, mistress of the mind, 

Lender not borrower from the Wind, 

Rival of Water and of Light, 

Adds her enchantment to the Night. 

What thoughts ! what dreams ! what ecstasies 

When heart and fingers touch the keys! 

Across what gulf of fate Love springs 

To Love, if Love caress the strings! 

By this mysterious amulet 

One shall remember or forget; 

When words and smiles and tears shall fail, 

The might of Music shall prevail; 

Shall move alike the wise and weak; 

All dialects alike shall speak; 

Outglow the rainbow to the doomed, — 

Consuming all, be unconsumed; 

Shall save a nation in its throes, 

Luring with concord grappling foes; 

Shall madden thus, yet shall be glad 

(Oh, paradox!) to soothe the mad. 



THE WINTER HOUR 19 

This rhythmic language made to reach 
Beyond the reticence of speech — 
Bland as the breeze of May it sighs, 
Or rolls reverberant till the skies 
Tremble with majesty ! Not the mote 
Most hid of all creation's rote 
But holds some message that shall be 
Transmuted into harmony. 
Already, since the lisping-time 
When music was but chant or chime, 
What spirits have to man been lent 
From God's discordless firmament! — 
Beethoven, brother of the Nine, 
But with a birthright more divine, — 
Whose harmonies that heavenward wend 
Wings to the laden spirit lend 
Uritil, serenely mounting higher, 
It melts into the starry choir; 
Wagner, in whom the Passions meet 
To throw themselves at Music's feet, — 
Whose murmurings have charm to wring 
From Love the secret of the Spring, — 
And in whose clamor sounds the siege 
Of heaven when Lucifer was liege. 



20 THE WINTER HOUR 

Handel, whose aspirations seem 

Like steps of gold in Jacob's dream; 

Mozart, simplest of the great, 

Heir of Melody's estate, 

Who did blithe pipes of Pan prolong 

And heighten to a seraph song. 

Schumann, rare poet, with a lyre 

Stringed in Imagination's fire; 

And oh, that one of human strain! — 

Chopin, beloved child of pain, 

To whom the whole of Love was known 

Marvel, and mystery, and moan, 

The joy secure, the jealous dart 

Deep-ambushed in the doubting heart, 

And all the perilous delight 

That waits on doubt, as dawn on night. 

Ah, who shall wake the charm that lies 
Past what is written for the eyes 
In such a scroll? The poet's need 
Is that a poet's heart should read. 
Happy the winter hour and fleet 
When flame and waiting passion meet 



THE WINTER HOUR 21 

In her pure fire whose chords betray 
The St. Cecilia of our day ! 
Oh, velvet of that Saxon hand 
So lately iron to command! — 
Like, at the shower's sudden stop, 
The softness of the clinging drop. 
What tender notes the trance prolong 
Of that famed rhythmic cradle-song! 
How faery is her woven spell 
Of minuet or tarantelle ! 
Who would return to earth when she 
Transports us with a rhapsody! 
And when in some symphonic burst 
Of joy her spirit is immersed, 
That path celestial fain to share, 
We vow to breathe but noble air! 



VII 

Warmed with melody like wine, 
Lighted by the friendly shine 
Of the rich-replenished hearth, 
Let us drink of wine and mirth 



22 THE WINTER HOUR 

While waning evening's aftermath 

Grows pleasant as a winding path 

With wit's surprises and the tale 

Adventurous, spreading sudden sail 

For Arcady and hallowed haunts 

Along the shores of old Romance: 

Now shall fare the fancy forth 

To pillared grottoes of the north, 

Where circling waters come again 

Like thoughts within a sleepless brain; 

Or, coursing down a softer coast 

Whose beauty is the Old World's boast, 

Shall pause for words while memory's flame 

Kindles at Taormina's name. 

And now in shifting talk appears 
Pomp of cities clad with years: 
Gay or gloomy with her skies, 
Gray Paris like an opal lies 
Sparkling on the front of France. 
Avignon doth hold a lance 
In a tourney-list with Nimes. 
Fair Seville basks in helpless dream 



THE WINTER HOUR 23 

Of conquest, as in caged air 

Dreams the tamed lion of his lair. 

Regal Genoa still adorns 

Her ancient throne; and Pisa mourns. 

Now we traverse holy ground 

Where three miracles are found: 

One of beauty — when with dyes 

Of her own sunset Venice vies. 

One of beauty and of power — 

Rome, the crumbled Babel-tower 

Of centuries piled on centuries — 

Scant refuge from Oblivion's seas 

That swept about her. And the third? — 

O heart, fly homeward like a bird, 

And look, from Bellosguardo's goal, 

Upon a city with a soul! 

Who that has climbed that heavenly 

height 
When all the west was gold with light, 
And nightingales adown the slope 
To listening Love were lending hope, 
Till they by vesper bells were drowned, 
As though by censers filled with sound — 



24 THE WINTER HOUR 

Who — who would wish a worthier end 
To every journey? or not blend 
With those who reverently count 
This their Transfiguration Mount? 



LOVE IN ITALY 

They halted at the terrace wall; 

Below, the towered city lay; 
The valley in the moonlight's thrall 

Was silent in a swoon of May. 
As hand to hand spoke one soft word 

Beneath the friendly ilex-tree. 
They knew not, of the flame that stirred, 

What part was Love, what Italy. 

They knew what makes the moon more bright 

Where Beatrice and Juliet are, — 
The sweeter perfume in the night, 

The lovelier starlight in the star; 
And more that glowing hour did prove, 

Beneath the sheltering ilex-tree, — 
That Italy transfigures Love, 

As Love transfigures Italy. 



THE WINTER HOUR 25 



VIII 



And thou, who art my winter hour — 
Book, picture, music, friend, and flower — 
If on such evening, dear, I trace 
Paths far from Love's divine embrace, 
Wandering till long absence grows 
Into brief death — less death's repose — 
Let me be missed with love and cheer, 
As miss we those of yesteryear 
With whom we thought (beguiling hope!) 
To stray together down Life's slope, 
While Age came on like gentle rain. 
They who but ceased their joyous strain — 
Where may the limit to the sea 
Of their bereaving silence be? 
Yet sorrow not: we may prolong, 
If not the singer's voice, the song. 
And if beyond the glorious strife 
Of this good world, I tread new life, 
Reluctant, but, by Heaven's aid, 
With infant instinct unafraid, 



26 . THE WINTER HOUR 

May Memory plead with thee to save 
Out of my song its happier stave. 
From the Dark Isthmus let not gloom 
Deepen the shadows of thy room. 
For me no ban of smile or jest: 
Life at its full is holiest. 
Let all thy days have pure employ 
In the high sanity of joy; 
Be then, as now, the friend of all, 
Thy heart a thronged confessional, 
A fount of sympathy, a store 
Of jewels at an open door. 

Here do I falter, love, for fear 

Of sacrilege to what is dear. 

Not now — not here; some luminous time, 

Some perfect place, some fortunate rhyme 

May yield that sacrificial part 

That poets fitly give to Art. 

Ever the moment most elate 

Must for a speech sufficient wait; 

Only the happiest know, alas! 

How soundless is the brimming glass. 



THE WINTER HOUR 27 

But, though Love need nor praise nor oath, 

And silence oft is firmer troth, 

Yet know that if I come no more, 

Tis fault of sail, or sea, or shore, 

Not of the pilot, — for the heart 

Sees its way homeward from the start. 

If Death have bond that Love can break, 

It shall be broken for thy sake. 

If spirits unto mortals teach 

Some rudiment of subtler speech, 

My presence shall about thee stay 

To prompt the word it cannot say. 

So when, with late farewell and slow, 
The guests into the night shall go, 
Each pulse by sympathy more warm, 
Forgetting the forgotten storm, 
And thou alone into the blaze, 
Thrilled with the best of life, shalt gaze 
With hunger for the life divine, 
Oh, be that blessed moment mine! — 
With thee, who art my winter hour, 
Book, picture, music, friend, and flower. 



28 A SPRING PRELUDE 



A SPRING PRELUDE 

O tardy April, is thy full choir here ? 
The redbreast, picket of the swarming spring, 
Whistles a sudden chirrup of alarm 
Before his level flight; and soft at eve 
His melody, on grass half-robin high, 
Falls like a vesper's throbbings from aloft. 
The sparrow tempts the turf to faster growth 
With her coy nesting, while her happy mate, 
High in the promise-reddened maple-top, 
O'er-bubbles with ecstasies of hoarded song. 
The mellow tunings of the oriole's flute, 
Rich as his coat, foretell his summer joy 
And pitch the key of gladness for the year. 
Here is the bluebird, best of mates and sires, 
And pewee, restless as a lover's fear, 
With cousin phoebe, bleating tearfully. 
The humblebee, that, nectar-drunk, shall soon 
Linger within the sybaritic flower, 



A SPRING PRELUDE 29 

Feeds his impatience at the cautious bud; 
And from the furrows' wet and windy reach, 
Where March but lately swung his icy scythe, 
Ripples the velvet air about the cheek, 
Laden with faintest chorusings, as though 
The brimming silence overflowed in sound. 

O tardy April, is the full choir here ? 

Alas for me ! thou hast forgot to bring 

Out of the South one childish, bird-like voice, 

Whose absence doth delay the year, and makes 

My songs and thine but preludes till she come. 



3° BEFORE THE BLOSSOM 



BEFORE THE BLOSSOM 

In the tassel-time of spring 
Love 's the only song to sing; 

Ere the ranks of solid shade 
Hide the bluebird's flitting wing, 

While in open forest glade 
No mysterious sound or thing 

Haunt of green has found or made, 
Love 's the only song to sing. 

Though in May each bush be dressed 
Like a bride, and every nest 

Learn Love's joyous repetend, 
Yet the half-told tale is best 

At the budding, — with its end 
Much too secret to be guessed, 

And its fancies that attend 
April's passion unexpressed. 



BEFORE THE BLOSSOM 31 

Love and Nature communing 
Gave us Arcady. Still ring — 

Vales across and groves among — 
Wistful memories, echoing 

Pan's far-off and fluty song. 
Poet! nothing harsher sing; 

Be, like Love and Nature, young 
In the tassel-time of spring. 



32 LOVE IN THE CALENDAR 



LOVE IN THE CALENDAR 

When chinks in April's windy dome 

Let through a day of June, 
And foot and thought incline to roam, 

And every sound 's a tune; 
When Nature fills a fuller cup, 

And hides with green the gray, — 
Then, lover, pluck your courage up 

To try your fate in May. 

Though proud she was as sunset clad 

In Autumn's fruity shades, 
Love too is proud, and brings (gay lad!) 

Humility to maids. 
Scorn not from nature's mood to learn, 

Take counsel of the day: 
Since haughty skies to tender turn, 

Go try your fate in May. 



LOVE IN THE CALENDAR 33 

Though cold she seemed as pearly light 

Adown December eves, 
And stern as night when March winds smite 

The beech's lingering leaves; 
Yet Love hath seasons like the year, 

And grave will turn to gay, — 
Then, lover, harken not to fear, 

But try your fate in May. 

And you whose art it is to hide 

The constant love you feel: 
Beware, lest overmuch of pride 

Your happiness shall steal. 
No longer pout, for May is here, 

And hearts will have their way; 
Love 's in the calendar, my dear, 

So yield to fate — and May! 



34 A SEPTEMBER VIOLET 



A SEPTEMBER VIOLET 

For days the peaks wore hoods of cloud, 

The slopes were veiled in chilly rain ; 
We said: It is the Summer's shroud, 
And with the brooks we moaned aloud, — 
Will sunshine never come again ? 

At last the west wind brought us one 
Serene, warm, cloudless, crystal day, 
As though September, having blown 
A blast of tempest, now had thrown 
A gauntlet to the favored May. 

Backward to Spring our fancies flew, 
And, careless of the course of Time, 

The bloomy days began anew. 

Then, as a happy dream comes true, 
Or as a poet finds his rhyme, — 



A SEPTEMBER VIOLET 35 

Half wondered at, half unbelieved, — 

I found thee, friendliest of the flowers! 
Then Summer's joys came back, green-leaved, 
And its doomed dead, awhile reprieved, 
First learned how truly they were ours. 

Dear violet! Did the Autumn bring 
Thee vernal dreams, till thou, like me, 

Didst climb to thy imagining ? 

Or was it that the thoughtful Spring 
Did come again, in search of thee ? 



36 SEPTEMBER'S EVE 



SEPTEMBER'S EVE 



'T is Nature's temple, and the day 
Is full of worship as of light. 
A sigh from now and 't will be night; 
The lordly vision will not stay. 
With dusky incense throbs the gray 
Half dome of sky. A cloistered note 
Of lingering bird-song sounds remote 
As the last echo of a hymn 
Sung in recessional, cold and dim. 
I worship, but as though the praise 
Must pass through Nature's priestly ways, 
For God doth seem as lone and far 
As yonder uncompanioned star, 
September's Eve. 



SEPTEMBER'S EVE 37 



II 



Along the mountain's altar crest 
The russet deepens in the West, 
As when to richer chords the close 
Of noble music softly flows. 
Now speed my footsteps through the dark, 
I see my leaping hearth, and hark ! 
Th* expectant children's view-halloo 
Rings out a melody of cheer. 
The rushing feet approach; I hear 
The lavish welcome panting through. 
How bright the sudden stars appear 
In friendly groups ! Now God is near, 
For Love is in her temple, too, 
September's Eve. 



38 OCTOBER 



OCTOBER 

Soft days whose silver moments keep 
The constant promise of the morn, 
When tired equinoctials sleep, 
And wintry winds are yet unborn: 
What one of all the twelve more dear — 
Thou truce and Sabbath of the year ? 

More restful art thou than the May, 
And if less hope be in thy hand, 
Some cares 't were grief to understand 
Thou hid'st, as is the mother's way, 
With mists and lights of fairy-land 
Set on the borders of the day. 

And best of all thou dost beguile 
With color, — friendliest thought of God! 
Than thine hath heaven itself a smile 
More rich ? Are feet of angels shod 
With peace more fair ? O month divine ! 
Stay, till thy tranquil soul be mine. 



IN NOVEMBER 39 



IN NOVEMBER 

Here is the watershed of all the year, 
Where, by a thought's space, thoughts do start anear 
That fare most widely forth : some to the mouth 
Of Arctic rivers, some to the mellow South. 

The gaunt and wrinkled orchard shivers 'neath 
The blast, like Lear upon the English heath, 
And mossy boughs blow wild that, undistressed, 
Another spring shall hide the cheerful nest. 

All things are nearer from this chilly crown, — 
The solitude, the white and huddling town; 
And next the russet fields, of harvest shorn, 
Shines the new wheat that freshens all the morn. 

From out the bursting milkweed, dry and gray, 
The silken argosies are launched away, 
To mount the gust, or drift from hill to hill 
And plant new colonies by road and rill. 



40 IN NOVEMBER 

Ah, wife of mine, whose clinging hand I hold 
Shrink you before the New, or at the Old? 
And those far eyes that hold the silence fast— 
Look they upon the Future, or the Past? 



ON NEARING WASHINGTON 41 



ON NEARING WASHINGTON 

City of homes and in my heart my home ! 
(Though other streets exact a grudging fee) : 
How leap my pulses when afar I see 
The dawn creep whitening down thy solemn dome ! 

For now my care-restricted steps may roam 
Thy urban groves — a forest soon to be — 
Where, like thy shining river, placid, free, 
Contentment dwells and beckons me to come. 

Ah, city dear to lovers! — that dost keep 

For their delight what Mays and what Novem- 
bers ! — 
Kindling the flame, and if it ever sleep, 
New-lighting it within the breathing embers; 
Dear even in their sorrow! for when they weep 
'T is for rare joys, scarce known till Love remem- 
bers. 



4 2 "AS A BELL IN A CHIME'' 



"AS A BELL IN A CHIME " 

As a bell in a chime 

Sets its twin-note a-ringing, 

As one poet's rhyme 

Wakes another to singing, 

So, once she has smiled, 

All your thoughts are beguiled 
And flowers and song from your childhood are bringing. 

Though moving through sorrow 
As the star through the night, 

She needs not to borrow, 
She lavishes, light. 

The path of yon star 

Seemeth dark but afar: 
Like hers it is sure, and like hers it is bright. 



"AS A BELL IN A CHIME" 43 

Each grace is a jewel 

Would ransom the town, 
Her speech has no cruel, 

Her praise is renown; 
'T is in her as though Beauty, 
Resigning to Duty 
The scepter, had still kept the purple and crown. 



44 IN THE DARK 



IN THE DARK 

At dusk, when Slumber's gentle wand 
Beckons to quiet fields my boy, 

And day, whose welcome was so fond, 
Is slighted like a rivaled toy, — 

When fain to follow, fain to stay, 

Toward night's dim border-line he peers, 

We say he fears the fading day: 
Is it the inner dark he fears? 

His deep eyes, made for wonder, keep 
Their gaze upon some land unknown, 

The while the crowding questions leap 
That show his ignorance my own. 

For he would go he knows not where, 
And I — I hardly know the more; 

Yet what is dark and what is fair 
He would to-night with me explore. 



IN THE DARK 45 

Upon the shoals of my poor creed 
His plummet falls, but cannot rest; 

To sound the soundless is his need, 
To find the primal soul his quest. 

In vain these bird-like flutterings, 

As when through cages sighs the wind: 

My clearest answer only brings 

New depths of mystery to his mind, — 

Vague thoughts, by crude surmise beset, 
And groping doubts that loom and pass 

Like April clouds that, shifting, fret 
With tides of shade the sun-wooed grass. 

O lonely soul within the crowd 
Of souls ! O language-seeking cry ! 

How black were noon without a cloud 
To vision only of the eye ! 

Sleep, child! while healing Nature breaks 
Her ointment on the wounds of Thought; 

Joy, that anew with morning wakes, 

Shall bring you sight it ne'er has brought. 



46 IN THE DARK 

Lord, if there be, as wise men spake, 
No Death, but only Fear of Death, 

And when Thy temple seems to shake 
'T is but the shaking of our breath, — 

Whether by day or night we see 

Clouds where Thy winds have driven none, 

Let unto us as unto Thee 
The darkness and the light be one. 



GOOD MEASURE OF LOVE 47 



GOOD MEASURE OF LOVE 

One twilight was there when it seemed 
New stars beneath young eyelids gleamed; 

In vain the warning clock would creep 
Anear the hour of beauty-sleep; 

In vain the trundle yearned to hold 
Far-Eyes and little Heart-of-Gold ; 

And love that kisses are the stuff of 
At last for once there was enough of, 

As though of all Affection's round 

The fond climacteric had been found — 

Each childish fancy heaping more, 
Like spendthrift from a miser-store, 



48 GOOD MEASURE OF LOVE 

Till stopped by hug and stayed by kiss — 
The sweet contention ran like this : 

" How much do I love you ? " (I remember but part 
Of the words of the troth of this lover) 

"I love you" — he said — "why — I love you — a heart 
Brimful and running over. 

"I love you a hundred!" said he, with a squeeze. 

"A thousand!" said she, as she nestled; 
" A million ! " he cried in triumphant ease 
While she with the numbers wrestled. 

"Aha! I have found it!" she shouted, "aha!" 
(The red to the soft cheeks mounting) 

" I love you — I love you — I love you, Papa, 
Over the last of the counting ! " 



NOBLESSE OBLIGE 49 



NOBLESSE OBLIGE 

What is diviner than the peace of foes ! 

He conquers not who does not conquer hate, 
Or thinks the shining wheels of heaven wait 
On his forgiving. Dimmer the laurel shows 

On brows that darken; and war- won repose 
Is but a truce when heroes abdicate 
To Huns — unfabling those of elder date 
Whose every corse a fiercer warrior rose. 

O ye that saved the land! Ah yes, and ye 

That mourned its saving! Neither need forget 
The price our destiny did of both demand — 

Toil, want, wounds, prison, and the lonely sea 
Of tears at home. Oh, look on these. And yet- 
Before the human fail you — quick! your hand! 



SO ON A CANDIDATE ACCUSED OF YOUTH 



ON A CANDIDATE ACCUSED OF YOUTH* 

" Too young " do they call him ? Who say it ? Not they 
Who have felt his hard stroke in the civic affray, 
When elders, whom veteran fighters had taught 
Till they knew all the rules by which battles are fought, 
Fumbled weakly with weapons his foresight had sought. 

Who thinks of his youthfulness ? Surely not they 
Who stood at his side through the wavering day, 
And knew the quick vision, the planning exact 
Of parry and thrust, till the stout helmet cracked 
'Neath the bold and true blow that is better than tact. 

Yea, the strength of the arm is the strength of its use, 
Not its years; and when fighting is on, better choose 
Not the rust-eaten sword from the library wall, 
But the new blade that leaps in its sheath at the call. 
Ask the foe by which weapon he fears most to fall ! 

* Theodore Roosevelt, 1886. 



WASHINGTON HYMN 51 



WASHINGTON HYMN 

SUNG AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE 

WASHINGTON MEMORIAL ARCH, NEW YORK, MAY 

30, 1890, TO THE AIR OF THE AUSTRIAN 

HYMN BY HAYDN 

Praise to Thee, O God of Freedom, 

Praise to Thee, O God of Law, 
Thee the goal of Israel's dreaming, 

Thee the flame that Moses saw; 
Light of every patriot dungeon, 

Home of exile, hope of slave, 
Loved by just and feared by tyrant, 

Comrade of the true and brave. 

Would we pray for new defenders, 
Thou art with us ere we call; 

Thou wilt find new ranks of heroes 
For the heroes yet to fall. 



52 WASHINGTON HYMN 

Back we look across the ages, 
Forward Thou beyond the sun, 

Yet no greater gift we ask Thee 
Than another Washington. 



TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON S3 



TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

ON THE DEATH OF GARFIELD, SEPTEMBER, 1 88 1 

Poet of every soul that grieves 
O'er death untimely: whose lament 

Lights up the farthest Dark, and leaves 
A bow across the heavens bent : 

Dead in an upper room doth lie 

A nation's hero; can it be 
Thy ear too faintly hears the cry 

The West wind utters to the sea ? 

Thy Concord paean may have caught 
Glow from an elder Garfield's name: 

What fitter aureole could be sought 
For such a son than such a flame! 



54 TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Bard of the Human: since we yearn 
For that one manly heart in vain, 

Forgive the reverent eyes that turn 

Toward the low stream in Concord plain. 

Warned by the favoring touch of Death, 
Thy Nunc Dimittis thou hast sung; 

No more the thunder's stormy breath 

Shall sweep the lyre with lightnings strung. 

And yet, for him, remains — unsigned, 
Unspoken — all thy noble praise, 

When (port more worth the cruise !) thou find 
His sail beyond the final haze; 

But us ?...... .0 Seer, to whose gift 

Looms large the Future's better part, 

What other prophet voice shall lift 
This burden from the people's heart! 



ILLUSIONS 55 



ILLUSIONS 

Go stand at night upon an ocean craft, 
And watch the folds of its imperial train 
Catching in fleecy foam a thousand glows — 
A miracle of fire unquenched by sea. 
There in bewildering turbulence of change 
Whirls the whole firmament, till as you gaze, 
All else unseen, it is as heaven itself 
Had lost its poise, and each unanchored star 
In phantom haste flees to the horizon line. 

What dupes we are of the deceiving eye ! 
How many a light men wonderingly acclaim 
Is but the phosphor of the path Life makes 
With its own motion, while above, forgot, 
Sweep on serene the old unenvious stars ! 



56 TO-MORROW 



TO-MORROW 

One walks secure in wisdom-trodden ways 
That lead to peaceful nights through happy days 
Health, fame, friends, children, and a gentle wife, 
All Youth can covet or Experience praise, 
And Use withal to crown the ease of life. 

Ah, thirsting for another day, 
How dread the fear 

If he but knew the danger near ! 

Another, with some old inheritance 
Of Fate, unmitigated yet by Chance, — 
Condemned by those he loves, with no appeal 
To his own fearful heart, that ever pants 
For newer circlings of the cruel Wheel ! 

Ah, thirsting for another day, 
What need of fear 

If he but knew the help that 's near? 



INSCRIPTION FOR A BURIAL URN 57 



INSCRIPTION FOR A BURIAL URN 

Fire is older than Earth, 

Swaddled her at her birth, 

Shall be her windy shroud. 

Fear whispers, Earth with fire endowed 

Is all of Life : but the Soul's Desire 

Is something other than earth and fire, 

And cannot mold or burn. 

Of this is Honor made, and Truth, 

And Love that shall out-light the star. 

Go find when these began their youth, 

Then guess their age's farthest bar ; 

But look not for it in grave or urn. 



5^ QUALITY 



QUALITY 



Take, ere the bee hath sipped, 

The courtly, maiden-lipped, 

And dewy oleander, 

And breathe, and dream, and wander. 

But ah! take not another, 

Lest fragrance fragrance smother. 



ii 



What all your wreathed wine 
To what I taste of mine ? 
See the spilled jewels run, 
Red as an autumn sun! — 
Each holding warm and clear 
The vintage of a year. 



QUALITY 59 



III 

Stranger," thy passing word 
My waiting heart hath stirred; 
My life to thee I lend! 
This hour thou art my friend, 
And could not dearer be 
Loved an eternity. 



6o LUCK AND WORK 



LUCK AND WORK 

While one will search the season over 
To find the magic four-leaved clover, 
Another, with not half the trouble, 
Will plant a crop to bear him double. 



ON A GREAT POETS OBSCURITY 61 



ON A GREAT POET'S OBSCURITY 

What means his line? You say none knows? 

Yet one perhaps may learn — in time: 
For, sure, could Life be told in prose 

There were no need at all for rhyme. 

Alike two waters blunt the sight — 
The muddy shallow and the sea; 

Here every current leads aright 
To deeps where lucent wonders be. 



62 WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S POEMS 



WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S POEMS 

(for a child) 

Midnight or morning, eve or noon, 
Torn March or clover-scented June, — 

Whene'er you stand before this gate, 
'T will open — if but not too soon 

You knock, if only not too late. 

Well shall it be if, boyhood gone, 
A boy's delight you still may own 

To play the dawn-new game of life, — 
If what is dreamed and what is known 

In your still-startled heart have strife. 

Ere you have banished Mystery, 
Or throned Distrust, or less shall be 

Stirred by the deep and fervent line 
Which is the poet's sign and fee: 

Be this your joy that now is mine. 



WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S POEMS 63 

When comes the hour, be full and bright 
Your lamp, as the wiser virgins' light! 

Choose some familiar, shrine-like nook, 
And offer up in prayer the night 

Upon the altar of this book. 

Always new earth, new heavens lie 
The apocalyptic spirit nigh: 

If such be yours, oh, while you can, 
Bid unregretted Youth good-bye, 

For morning shall proclaim you Man. 



64 AMIEL 



AMIEL 

(the "journal intime") 

A few there are who to the troubled soul 
Can lay the ear with that physician-art 
Which by a whispered accent in the heart 
Follows the lurking treason that hath stole 

Into the citadel; — a few whose scroll 
Of warning bears our safety, — is a chart 
Of our unsounded seas, and doth impart 
Courage to hold the spirit to its goal. 

Of such is Amiel, lonely as a saint, — 

Or as an eagle dwelling on peaks, in shade 
Of clouds, which now he cleaves for one wide look 

At the green earth, now for a circle faint 

Nearer the sun. Once more has Truth betrayed 
Secrets to Sorrow not in the sibyPs book. 



"THE GUEST OF THE EVENING" 65 



"THE GUEST OF THE EVENING" 

(READ AT THE DINNER TO RICHARD WATSON GILDER, 
ON HIS BIRTHDAY FEBRUARY 8, 1 884) 

Good actions are a fruit so ripe and rare 
They bear not fingering. Let me then beware 
To touch with venturous hand this curving branch, 
Nor lean too heedlessly against the tree 
Thus, at its prime, o'erladen heavily 
With golden harvest full and sweet and stanch, — 
Lest I by some rude shock, at this light hour, 
Bring down the Virtues in a mellow shower. 

To drop the figure, friends, — let 's be content 

The guest shall fancy less than we have meant; 

Speak not too closely of his special good, 

That we are here tells more than trumpets could. 

Our friendship holds his virtues as the light 

Holds the hid rainbow — storm but makes them bright; 

The modest veil they wear I may not raise 

Lest he should blush to hear, and I to praise. 



66 SALVINI 



SALVINI 

" Dead is old Greece," they mourned ere yet arose 
This Greek — this oak of old Achaian graft 
Seed-sown where westward tempests wept and 
laughed, 
As now when some great gust of heaven blows 
From lair levantine. How the giant grows! — 
Not to lone ruin of a withered shaft, 
But quaffing life in every leafy draught, — 
Fathered by Storm and mothered by Repose. 

Nay, doubt the Greeks are gone till, this green 
crest 
In splendor fallen, round the wrack shall be 
Prolonged, like memories of a noble guest, 

The phantom glory of the actor's day. 
Then, musing on Olympus, men shall say 
The myth of Jove took rise from lesser majesty. 



FOR TEARS 67 



FOR TEARS 

Some birches from the winter snow unbend, 
And some lie prone the happy summer long: 

Is grief but weakness ? May it be, blithe friend, 
The heavier burden stays but on the strong ? 



68 APPREHENSIONS 



APPREHENSIONS 

Seven days we sought the horizon line, elate, 
Without a sea-born doubt of things to come; 
Then on the eighth, upon the sill of home, 

A fog, not of the sea, fell with a weight 

Upon our spirits. Where was noon's rich freight 
Of summer cheer, the darkness spoke of doom, 
Till thoughts familiar did such dole assume 

We could but cling before the coming fate. 

In port — what greeting? From beloved lips 
The same " All 's well ! " that could not charm 

our woe 
Chanted an ocean litany against harm; 

Our happiness swung forth from fear's eclipse. 
Alas ! upon a fearless friend the blow 
Fell like first lightning from long-gathered storm. 



BROWNING AT A SOLO 



BROWNING AT ASOLO 

(INSCRIBED TO HIS FRIEND MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON) 

This is the loggia Browning loved, 

High on the flank of the friendly town; 

These are the hills that his keen eye roved, 
The green like a cataract leaping down 
To the plain that his pen gave new renown. 

There to the West what a range of blue! — 
The very background Titian drew 

To his peerless Loves. O tranquil scene! 
Who than thy poet fondlier knew 

The peaks and the shore and the lore between ? 

See! yonder 's his Venice — the valiant Spire, 

Highest one of the perfect three, 
Guarding the others: the Palace choir, 
The Temple flashing with opal fire — 

Bubble and foam of the sunlit sea. 



70 BROWNING AT ASOLO 

Yesterday he was part of it all — 

Sat here, discerning cloud from snow- 
In the flush of the Alpine afterglow, 
Or mused on the vineyard whose wine-stirred row 

Meets in a leafy bacchanal. 

Listen a moment — how oft did he! — 

To the bells from Fontalto's distant tower 

Leading the evening in . . . ah, me! 

Here breathes the whole soul of Italy 

As one rose breathes with the breath of the bower. 

Sighs were meant for an hour like this 

When joy is keen as a thrust of pain. 
Do you wonder the poet's heart should miss 
This touch of rapture in Nature's kiss 
And dream of Asolo ever again ? 

" Part of it yesterday," we moan ? 

Nay, he is part of it now, no fear. 
What most we love we are that alone. 
His body lies under the Minster stone, 

But the love of the warm heart lingers here. 

" La Mura," Asolo, June 3, 1892. 



AT SEA 71 



AT SEA 

Some things are undivined except by love- 
Vague to the mind, but real to the heart, 
As is the point of yon horizon line 
Nearest the dear one on a foreign shore. 



72 MOODS OF THE SOUL 

MOODS OF THE SOUL 
I. — In Time of Victory 

As soldiers after fight confess 

The fear their valor would not own 

When, ere the battle's thunder stress, 
The silence made its mightier moan: 

Though now the victory be mine, 
T is of the conflict I must speak, 

Still wondering how the Hand Divine 
Confounds the mighty with the weak. 

To-morrow I may flaunt the foe — 
Not now; for in the echoing beat 

Of fleeing heart-throbs well I know 
The bitterness of near defeat. 

O friends! who see but steadfast deeds, 
Have grace of pity with your praise. 

Crown if you must, but crown with weeds, 
The conquered more deserve your bays. 



MOODS OF THE SOUL 73 

No, praise the dead! — the ancestral roll 
That down their line new courage send, 

For moments when against the soul 
All hell and half of heaven contend. 



II. — In Time of Defeat 

Yes, here is undisguised defeat — 
You say, " No further fight to lose." 

With colors in the dust, 't is meet 

That tears should flow and looks accuse. 

I echo every word of ruth 

Or blame : yet have I lost the right 
To praise with you the unfaltering Truth, 

Whose power — save in me — has might? 

Another day, another man: 

I am not now what I have been; 

Each grain that through the hour-glass ran 
Rescued the sinner from his sin. 



74 MOODS OF THE SOUL 

The Future is my constant friend; 

Above all children born to her 
Alike her rich affections bend— 

She, the unchiding comforter. 

Perhaps on her unsullied scroll 

(Who knows?) there may be writ at last 

A fairer record of the soul 

For this dark blot upon the Past. 



TO LEONORA 75 

TO LEONORA 

(AT HER DEBUT, OCTOBER l8, 1891) 

Fair sister of the Muses, 't is the hour, 

Dearest of all, when thou dost wed thy Art. 
No bride more radiant a more single heart 
Gave to her chosen — and what noble dower! 

Graces akin to forest and to flower; 
A spirit blithe as dawn; a soul astart; 
A nature rich, to keep thee what thou art — 
A star of beauty and a flame of power. 

Now, while the tranced throng turn each to each 
Sharing their joy, think'st thou on those young years 
When many a day and night was unbeguiled 

Save by this love that lightened toil and tears? 
Thy music melts upon the verge of speech; 
Fame greets the artist — I, the constant child. 



76 HERBERT MARES 



HERBERT MAPES 
(drowned august 23, 1891) 

Last night, what kingdom on his brow! 

What mellow music in his voice! 

What strength to make the eye rejoice! 
What life! what flush of youth! . . . and now! 

O brow dethroned! O muffled bell 
Of speech ! O net too loosely wove ! 
O sunken freight of hope and love ! 

Come back till we have said farewell ! 



A WISH FOR NEW FRANCE 77 



A WISH FOR NEW FRANCE 

(fragment) 

For her no backward look 
Into the bloody book 

Of kings. Thrice-rescued land ! 
Her haunted graves bespeak 
A nobler fate : to seek 
In service of the world again the world's command. 

She, in whose skies of peace 
Arise new auguries 

To strengthen, cheer, and guide — 
When nations in a horde 
Draw the unhallowed sword, 
O Memory, walk a warning specter at her side! 



7 8 DIVIDED HONORS 



DIVIDED HONORS* 

Nature had late a strife with Art 
To prove which bears the worthier part 
In poets' fame. The words ran high 
While Justice, friend to both, stood by 
To name the victor. 

Nature rose, 
Impressive in her artless pose, 
And in a few words fitly chose 
(Confined to generalities) 
Pleaded the nature of the thing — 
That singers born to sing must sing, 
That it could not be otherwise; 
Spoke of the poet's " flight of wing," 
His "flow of song," his " zephyr sighs," 
And hid in trope and allegory 
A whole campaign of a priori. 

Then Art began to plead her cause; 
Said Nature's windy words had flaws — 

* Written for the dinner to James Whitcomb Riley at Indiana- 
polis, October 18, 1888. 



DIVIDED HONORS 79 

That e'en the larklet soaring high 
Must surely once have learned to fly 
And eke to sing. Moreover, Song 
Is something more than baby-prattle; 
Or plow-boy's carol to the cattle; 
Or love's acrostic — though it be 
Faultless (at one extremity); 
Or verse that school-girls spoil a day for, 
Found good to print, but not to pay for. 
This well she with herself debated, 
And, lacking points, elaborated, 
And, like a lawyer closely pressed, 
Naught having proved, assumed the rest. 

But Justice, knowing how to prick 

The airy globes of rhetoric, 

Said, " Friends, your theories are ample, 

Yet light upon the case we need, 

And, me judice, she '11 succeed 

Who shall present the best example." 

A moment both were still as death, 

Then shouted "Shakespeare!" in a breath; 



So DIVIDED HONORS 

And then, confounded by each other 

(While pondering moderated pother), 

Ran down the list of English charmers, 

As in a fugue of two performers : 

T was " Chaucer ! " " Philip Sidney ! " " Donne ! " 

"George Herbert!" "Milton!" "Tennyson!" 
And, quick as either one would name them, 
The other would be sure to claim them! — 
Till Justice — blindfold all these years 
Because she can't believe her eyes — 
Convinced that hearing, too, belies, 
Now pulled her bandage o'er her ears. 
Then Nature, in affected candor, 
Renounced all ownership in Landor, 
And said : " Let 's both make fair returns ; 
I '11 give you Keats — you give me Burns." 

" No, no," said Art, " you have a fit man,— 
Your whole contention lies in Whitman." 
Then, she not wanting from her rival 
A gift of what was hers by right, 
At once there followed a revival 
Of acrimony — till in fright 
Pale Justice, with a sly suggestion 
Of dining, moved the previous question. 



DIVIDED HONORS 8 1 

But Nature, conscious of her force, 

Had in reserve a shrewd resource, 

And, while the judgment hung uncertain, 

She quickly drew aside a curtain, 

And, full of confidence, said dryly: 

I rest my case on Whitcomb Riley! 

And further to enforce my right, 

He has consented to recite, 

That all may see by how large part 

He has possession of my heart." 



Five minutes ! and the wager 's o'er : 
A ballad, homely, simple, true — 
And then, and ever after, you 
See Nature as you 'd ne'er before. 
First is the kind eye's twinkling ray 
So lit with human sympathy 
That, kindled by its flash, you say 
Humor 's the true democracy. 
The next note 's deeper — there 's no guile 
Mixed with the shrewdness of that smile 
That breaks from sadness into joy — 
The man's glad memory of the boy. 



82 DIVIDED HONORS 

Then tears, ah! they are Nature's rain, 
The tears of love and death and grief 
And rapture — the divine relief 
That gives us back the sun again. 



No more need Nature nurse her fears, 
For look ! e'en Art herself 's in tears, 
And in the general acclaim 
The jade has nigh forgot her name. 
Yet has she left one arrow more, 
And, proudly rising to the floor, 
Not yet," she says, " for what you take 
For Nature's work is mine, who make 
Jewels of stones that else would lie 
Unnoticed 'neath the searching sky. 
Receive the secret — mine your tears: 
He 's been my pupil fifteen years!" 

Then Justice said : " Since there *s no winner, 
'T is fair the two should pay a dinner; 
Nature shall furnish, Art prepare it, 
And Riley, and his friends, shall share it." 



A TRACER FOR y*** B ******** 83 



******** 



A TRACER FOR J*** B 

1 

Dear English Cousins : We have lost — 
And crave your help to find him — 

A farmer-poet, ocean-tossed, 
With no address behind him. 

Yes, though of song he write no stave, 

We yet will call him poet: 
His lines, as wave with following wave, 

Make rhythm and never know it. 

His pages grow rare fruits of thought, 

Rare fruits of toil his furrows; 
His name ? Why hide it when you Ve caught 

The rhyme I seek? — John Burroughs. 

I doubt if in the London round 

His eager feet will loiter, 
While hedge and copse of Kentish ground 

Are left to reconnoiter. 



84 A TRACER FOR J*** #******** 

There he '11 compare, in lulls of rain, 

Your thrushes with our cat-bird, 
And quiz the lads in every lane 

For news of this or that bird. 

Him leaners over Stratford gates 

Shall mark, by Avon strolling. 
A poacher? Ay, but on estates 

Not near their vision rolling. 

When Shakespeare tribute he has brought 

Across the loyal ocean, 
He 11 seek some haunt that Wordsworth sought 

To pay his next devotion. 

His "next" — ah! rather say his first, 
Since friend is more than sovereign; 

Of poets be the truth rehearsed : 
To reign is not to govern. 

To him the moor shall not be lone, 

Nor any footstep idle 
Where Nature hoards each lingering tone 

Of the human voice of Rydal. 



A TRACER FOR J*** £******** 85 

By poets led, he will not grope, 
But be, from Kent to Cumberland, 

At home as on his Hudson slope 
Or Rip Van Winkle's slumberland. 



11 



How shall you know him? — by what word, 
What shibboleth, what mole-ridge? — 

Him who will find an English bird 
Just by a line of Coleridge ? 

Of outward mark the quickest test 

Is that he wears the shading 
That sober Autumn loves the best — 

Soft gray through iron fading. 

Tinged, too, are beard and hair; and keen 

His eye, but warm and witty; 
A rustic strength is in his mien, 

Made mild by love and pity. 



86 A TRACER FOR y*** B ******** 

A man of grave, of jolly moods, 

That with the world has kept tune — 

You 'd call him Druid in the woods, 
And in the billows Neptune. 

Another sign that will not fail: 
Where'er he chance to tarry, — 

In copse, or glen, or velvet vale, 
Or where the streamlets marry, 

Or on the peaks whose shadows spread 
O'er Grasmere's level reaches, — 

You '11 note shy shakings of his head 
Before his Saxon speeches. 



in 



Ah me ! by how poor facts and few 

A stranger may detect us, 
While friends may never find the clew, 

Though keenly they inspect us. 



A TRACER FOR J*** £******** 87 

Of things that make the man — alack! 

I 've hardly even hinted ; 
We speak of them — -behind his back, 

But here? — this might be printed. 

Still ... he 'd not know the portrait his — 

His modesty so blinds him — 
But no ! ... to learn what Burroughs is 

Shall be his fee who finds him. 



II 

SONGS OF LIBERTY 

AND OTHER POEMS 



TO MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE* 

From the Parthenon 

(inscribed to the greek people on the seventy- 
fifth ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR INDEPENDENCE) 



O land of sage and stoic — 
Of human deeds heroic, 

Of heroes' deeds divine! 
What braggart of the nations 
Shall scorn thy proud narrations — 
Thou who hast named the stars from thy Olympian line ! 

* This ode, begun on the steps of the Parthenon in 1886, was 
published in the New York " Independent " of April, 1896, and, in 
part, in modern Greek in the " Hellas," a record of the Olympic 
Games of that year. 

93 



94 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

In spite of Moslem crime 
Thou livest! Hungry Time 
Can but the dead devour. 
Though asphodel hath strewed 
This marble solitude, 
The silence thrills with life, the ruins rise in power. 

Yon sea's imperial vastness 

Was once thy friend and fastness ; 

By many a curving strand, 
'Twixt purple capes, on edges 
Of seaward-looking ledges, 
Rose the white cities sown by thy adventurous hand. 

Nor couldst thou think of these 
As lonely colonies 

Wherewith rich Corinth lined 
The West, while Dorian sails 
Outrode ^Egean gales ; 
Nay, suburbs were they all, molds of Athenian mind. 

Then could thy galleys pass 
From Tyre to Acragas, 

By Grecian islands gray 
That dreamed of Athens' brow, 
And gaily to the prow 
Harnessed the pawing winds to seek some Attic bay. 




APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 95 

Here to Athene's feast, 

From West, from North, from East — 

Through Jason's fabled strait 
Or round Malea's rock — 
The homesick sails would flock, 
Oft with an Odyssey of peril to relate. 

And what exultant stir 
When the swart islander, 

Bound for the festal week, 
First saw Colonna's crest 
Give back the glowing West 
Far past iEgina's shore and her prophetic peak! 

I hear his cheery cries 
Though Time between us lies 

More wide than sea and land. 
The gladness that he brings 
Thrills in the song he sings, 
Beaching his welcome craft on Phaleron's level strand. 

O harbor of delight! 

Strike the torn sail — to-night 

On Attic soil again! 
When joy is free to slaves 
What though the swarming waves 
Follow each other down like the generations of men ! 



96 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

Now, for a time, to war 
And private hate a bar 
Of sacred armistice ; 
Even in the under-world 
Shall the rough winds be furled 
That tell of wrangling shades that crowd the courts of Dis. 

'T is Peace shall bring the green 
For Merit's brow. What scene, 

O Athens, shall be thine! 
Till from Parnassus' height 
Phoebus' reluctant light 
Lingers along Hymettus' fair and lofty line. 

With dance and song and game 
And oratory's flame 

Shall Hellas beat and swell, 
Till, olive-crowned, in pride 
The envied victors ride, 
Fellows to those whose fame the prancing marbles tell. 

O antique time and style, 
Return to us awhile 

Bright as thy happy skies ! 
Silent the sounds that mar : 
Like music heard afar 
The harmony endures while all the discord dies. 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 97 

Not yet the cloister-shade 
Fell on a world afraid, 

Morbid, morose — the alloy 
Found greater than the gold 
Of life. Like Nature old 
Thou still didst sing and show the sanity of joy. 

Thine is that wisdom yet 

That Age from Youth must get, 

Age pay to Youth in kind. 
Oh, teach our anxious days 
Through thy serener ways 
How by the happy heart to keep the unclouded mind. 

ii 
But thou wert Freedom's too 
As well as Joy's. She drew 

From every mountain breast 
An air that could endure 
No foreign foe — so pure 
That Lycabettus neighbors the Corinthian crest. 

Nor was thy love of life 
For thee alone. Thy strife 
Was for the race, no less. 
Thee, to whom wrong is done 
While wrong confronts the sun, 
The oppressor cannot crush, nor teach thee to oppress. 

7 



98 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

By thee for lands benighted 
Was Freedom's beacon lighted 
That now enstars the earth. 
Welcome the people's hour! 
Passed is the monarch's power, 
Dread waits not on his death that trembled at his birth. 

As down a craggy steep 
Albanian torrents leap 

Impetuous to the sea — 
Such was thy ancient spirit, 
Still thine. Who that inherit 
Hatred of tyranny inherit not from thee? 

Look to the West and see 
Thy daughter, Italy — 

Fathered by Neptune bold 
On Cumae's sheltered strand 
(Forgot but for the hand 
That saved to Art her sibyl many-named and old) ; 

That temple-sated soil, 
Whose altar-smoke would coil 
To hide the Avernian steep, 
Grows the same harvest now — 
Best increase of the plow, 
Fair Freedom, of thy seed, sown for the world to reap. 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 99 

Though regal Rome display 
The triumphs of her day ; 

Though Florence, laurel-hung, 
Tell how she held the van 
In the slow march of man — 
Greek was the path they trod , Greek was the song they sung. 

Look farther west and there 
Behold thy later heir, 

Child of thy Jove-like mind — 
Fair France. How hath she kept 
The watch while others slept? 
Hath Wisdom hastened on while Justice lagged behind? 

Like thee, full well she knows 
Through what maternal throes 

New forms from olden come ; 
Her arts, her temples, speak 
A glory that is Greek, 
And filially her heart turns to the ancestral home. 

For her no backward look 
Into the bloody book 

Of kings. Thrice-rescued land ! 
Her furrowed graves bespeak 
A nobler fate : to seek 
In service of the world again the world's command. 

;LofC. 



ioo APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

She in whose skies of peace 
Arise new auguries 

To strengthen, cheer, and guide — 
When nations in a horde 
Draw the unhallowed sword, 
O Memory, walk, a warning specter, at her side! 

Among thy debtor lands, 
See, grateful England stands ; 

Who at thy ranging feet 
Learned how to carry Law 
Into the jungle's maw, 
And tempers unto Man or cold or desert heat. 

All that thou daredst she dares 
Till now thy name she bears — 

Mother of Colonies. 
What if thy glorious Past 
She should restore at last, 
And clothe in new renown the dream of Pericles! 

If she but lean to thee 

Once more thy North shall be 

Uplifted from the dust. 
Mother of noble men, 
Thy friends of sword and pen, 
England, though slow to justice, shall again be just. 



APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 101 

And now from our new land 
Beyond two seas, a hand! 

Our world, for ages dumb, 
Part of thy fable-lore, 
Gathers upon her shore 
Each dying race as soil for one chief race to come. 

But of our beating heart 
Thy pulse how large a part! 
Our wider sky but bounds 
Another Grecian dawn. 
Lament not what is gone ; 
Pentelicus grieves not, for Fame hath healed his wounds. 

in 
Then, Hellas! scorn the sneer 
Of kings who will not hear 

Their people's moaning voice, 
More deaf than shore to sea! 
The world hath need of thee — 
The world thou still canst teach to reason and rejoice. 

Yes, need of thee while Art 
Of life is but a part — 
Plaything or luxury. 
Greek soil perchance may show 
Where Art's hid stream doth flow — 
To rise, a new Alpheus, near another sea. 



102 APOSTROPHE TO GREECE 

Yes, need of thee while Gold 
Makes timid traitors bold 

To lay republics low ; 
Not ignorant nor poor 
Spread for their feet the lure — 
The kind, the loved, the honored, aim the brutal blow. 

Yes, need of thee while Earth 
Each day shows Heaven a girth 

Of want and misery ; 
Wherein there is not found 
Beyond thy happy bound 
A people brave, sane, temperate, thrifty, chaste, and free. 

Then, though by faction's blunder, 
And boasts, of mimic thunder, 

Again thou art betrayed, 
Vain this, vain every treason ; 
With thee are Hope and Reason, 
Nor Past can be forgot, nor Future long delayed. 

Troy was, but Athens is — 
The World's and Liberty's, 

Nor ever less shall be! 
Though fallen are old fanes 
The vestal fire remains 
Bright with the light serene of immortality. 



SONG OF THE MODERN GREEKS 103 



SONG OF THE MODERN GREEKS 

Liberty, beloved of Hellas, 
Lend us once again thy sword ; 

Turn thy glorious eyes that tell us 
Thou art still to be adored. 

Hail thee, spirit! hover over 

Salamis and Marathon, 
Till each corse that called thee lover 

Rise with thee to lead us on. 

Slumbered Hellas long in sadness, 
Waiting thee to call her forth ; 

Hushed the very cradle's gladness 
By the tyrant of the North. 

Long she dwelt with buried heroes 
In the fame of other years ; 

But against a horde of Neros 
What availed or pride or tears ? 



to4 SONG OF THE MODERN GREEKS 

Then at last thy summons called us, 
And as one we followed thee, 

Till the rusted chains that thralled us 
Fell, and Greece once more was free, 

Ah, but while our kin are weeping 

Over sea and over land, 
Let us not again be sleeping, 

Wake us with thy warning hand. 

Though the Moslem swarm to slay us, 
Though false friends, within, without - 

Kings or cowards — shall betray us, 
If thou lead us, who shall doubt? 

Greece's blood made many an altar 
For the nations then unborn ; 

Will they with her peril palter— 
Give her gratitude, or scorn? 

Oh, could Earth and Time assemble 

All thy legions, Liberty, 
At their tread the world would tremble 

With the passion to be free. 



TO THE HO USA TONIC AT STOCKBRIDGE 105 



TO THE HOUSATONIC AT STOCKBRIDGE 

Contented river! in thy dreamy realm— 

The cloudy willow and the plumy elm : 

They call thee English, thinking thus to mate 

Their musing streams that, oft with pause sedate, 

Linger through misty meadows for a glance 

At haunted tower or turret of romance. 

Beware their praise who rashly would deny 

To our New World its true tranquillity. 

Our " New World "? Nay, say rather to our Old 

(Let truth and freedom make us doubly bold) ; 

Tell them : A thousand silent years before 

Their sea-born isle— at every virgin shore 

Dripping like Aphrodite's tresses— rose, 

Here, 'neath her purple veil, deep slept Repose, 

To be awakened but by wail of war. 

About thy cradle under yonder hill, 

Before thou knewest bridge, or dam, or mill, 

Soft winds of starlight whispered heavenly lore, 

Which, like our childhood's, all the workday toil 

Cannot efface, nor long its beauty soil. 

Thou hast grown human laboring with men 

At wheel and spindle ; sorrow thou dost ken ; 



106 TO THE HOUSATONIC AT STOCKBRIDGE 

Yet dost thou still the unshaken stars behold, 
Calm to their calm returning, as of old. 
Thus, like a gentle nature that grows strong 
In meditation for the strife with wrong, 
Thou show'st the peace that only tumult can ; 
Surely, serener river never ran. 

Thou beautiful ! From every dreamy hill 
What eye but wanders with thee at thy will, 
Imagining thy silver course unseen 
Convoyed by two attendant streams of green 
In bending lines, — like half-expected swerves 
Of swaying music, or those perfect curves 
We call the robin ; making harmony 
With many a new-found treasure of the eye : 
With meadows, marging smoothly rounded hills 
Where Nature teemingly the myth fulfils 
Of many-breasted Plenty ; with the blue, 
That to the zenith fades through triple hue, 
Pledge of the constant day ; with clouds of white, 
That haunt horizons with their blooms of light, 
And when the east with rosy eve is glowing 
Seem like full cheeks of zephyrs gently blowing. 

Contented river! and yet over-shy 

To mask thy beauty from the eager eye ; 



TO THE HOUSATONIC AT STOCKBRIDGE 107 

Hast thou a thought to hide from field and town? 

In some deep current of the sunlit brown 

Art thou disquieted — still uncontent 

With praise from thy Homeric bard, who lent 

The world the placidness thou gavest him? 

Thee Bryant loved when life was at its brim ; 

And when the wine was falling, in thy wood 

Of sturdy willows like a Druid stood. 

Oh, for his touch on this o'er-throbbing time, 

His hand upon the hectic brow of Rhyme, 

Cooling its fevered passion to a pace 

To lead, to stir, to reinspire the race! 

Ah ! there 's a restive ripple, and the swift 
Red leaves — September's firstlings— faster drift; 
Betwixt twin aisles of prayer they seem to pass 
(One green, one greenly mirrored in thy glass). 
Wouldst thou away, dear stream? Come, whisper near! 
I also of much resting have a fear : 
Let me to-morrow thy companion be 
By fall and shallow to the adventurous sea! 



IQ 8 FAREWELL TO ITALY 



FAREWELL TO ITALY 

We lingered at Domo d'Ossola— 
Like a last, reluctant guest-— 

Where the gray-green tide of Italy 
Flows up to a snowy crest. 

The world from that Alpine shoulder 

Yearns toward the Lombard plain — 

The hearts that come, with rapture, 
The hearts that go, with pain. 

Afar were the frets of Milan ; 

Below, the enchanted lakes ; 
And— was it the mist of the evening, 

Or the mist that the memory makes ? 

We gave to the pale horizon 

The Naples that evening gives ; 

We reckoned where Rome lies buried, 
And we felt where Florence lives. 



FAREWELL TO ITALY 109 

And as Hope bends low at parting 

For a death-remembered tone, 
We searched the land that Beauty 

And Love have made their own. 

We would take of her hair some ringlet, 
Some keepsake from her breast, 

And catch of her plaintive music 
The strain that is tenderest. 

So we strolled in the yellow gloaming 

(Our speech with musing still) 
Till the noise of the militant village 

Fell faint on Calvary Hill. 

And scarcely our mood was broken 

Of near-impending loss 
To find at the bend of the pathway 

A station of the Cross. 

And up through the green aisle climbing 
(Each shrine like a counted bead), 

We heard from above the swaying 
And mystical chant of the creed. 

Then the dead seemed the only living, 
And the real seemed the wraith, 



no FAREWELL TO ITALY 

And we yielded ourselves to the vision 
We saw with the eye of Faith. 

Then she said, " Let us go no farther : 
'T is fit that we make farewell 

While forest and lake and mountain 
Are under the vesper spell." 

As we rested, the leafy silence 
Broke like a cloud at play, 

And a browned and burdened woman 
Passed, singing, down the way. 

'T was a song of health and labor, — 
Of childlike gladness, blent 

With the patience of the toiler 
That tyrants call content. 

" Nay, this is the word we have waited," 
I said, "that a year and a sea 

From now, in our doom of exile, 
Shall echo of Italy." 

Just then what a burst from the bosquet— 
As a bird might have found its soul ! 

And each by the halt of the heart-throb 
Knew 't was the rossignol. 



FAREWELL TO ITALY m 

Then we drew to each other nearer 

And drank at the gray wall's verge 

The sad, sweet song of lovers, — 
Their passion and their dirge. 

And the carol of Toil below us 

And the paean of Prayer above 
Were naught to the song of Sorrow, 

For under the sorrow was Love. 

Alas ! for the dear remembrance 

We chose for an amulet : 
The one that is left to keep it — 

Ah ! how can he forget ? 



112 A CHOPIN FANTASY 



A CHOPIN FANTASY 

ON REMEMBRANCE OF A PRELUDE 

Come, love, sit here and let us leave awhile 
This custom-laden world for warmer lands 
Where, 'neath the silken net of afternoon, 
Leisure is duty and dread care a dream. 

{The music begins) 

That cliff 's Minorca, that horizon Spain. 
There in the west, like fragrance visible, 
Rises the soft light as the sun goes down 
Till half the sky is palpitant with gold. 
Follow it eastward to the gentle blue, 
With faith and childhood in it, and the peace 
Men agonize and roam for. See that fleet 
That flutters in the breeze from the Camargue 
Like white doves, huddled now, now scattering. 
(They say all native boats are homeward bound 
Against to-morrow's annual festival.) 
What rest there is in looking from this height 



A CHOPIN FANTASY 113 

On palms and olives, and the easy steps 

By which the terrace clambers yonder hill! 

How dark those hollows whence the roads of white 

Ascend in angles to the high-perched town! 

Needless the music of the convent bell : 

Tis vespers in the heart as in the air. 

This is the hour for love, that, like the breath 

Of yonder orange, sweetest is at eve. 

Here, safe entwined, what could be wished for two 

Hid in an island hidden in the sea ? 

Now let me lay my head upon your lap, 

And place your rose-leaf fingers on my lids, 

Lest, catching glimpse of your resplendent eyes, 

My ardor should blaspheme the coming stars ! 

How fast it darkens ! One must needs be blind 

To know the twilight softness of your voice. 

And Love, — not blind, but with a curtained sight, — 

Like one who dwells with Sorrow, can discern 

The shading of a shadow in a tone. 

There 7 s something troubles you, my sweet-of-hearts, 

A hesitance in that caressing word ; 

Nothing unhappy — a presentiment 

Such as from far might thrill the under-depths 

Of some still tranquil lake before a storm. 

Be happy, love, not ponder happiness. 



H4 A CHOPIN FANTASY 

Unerringly I know your woman's soul, 

Content to have your happiness put off 

Like well-planned feast against to-morrow's need, 

And more enjoyed in planning than in use. 

But oh, we men, God made us— what was that? 

A drop upon your hand? Perhaps a tear 

Lost by an angel who remembers yet 

Some perfect moment of th' imperfect world, 

And goes reluctantly her way to heaven, 

Still envious of our lot? Another drop! 

Why, 't is the rain. Stand here and see that sky— 

Blackness intense as sunlight. What a chasm 

Of silver where that lightning tore its way! 

That crash was nearer ! Here 's our shelter — quick ! 

Now it 's upon us! Half a breath, and — there! 

No wonder you should tremble when the earth 

Sways thus and all the firmament 's a-reel. 

Tremble, but fear not — Love created Fear 

To drive men back to Love, where you are now. 

What rhythmic terror in the tideless sea 

That wildly seeks the refuge of the rocks 

From unknown dangers (dangers known are none) ! 

God! did you see within the headland's jaws 

That drifting sail? Wait the next flash and — look ! 

Oh, heaven ! to cruise about a hundred coasts, 

Safe past the fabled monsters of the deep, 



A CHOPIN FANTASY 115 

To break supinely on familiar shoals 

Where one in childhood digged a mimic grave ! 

Thank God for those few, momentary stars, 
And that slow-lifting zone of topaz light, 
Like parting guest returning with a smile. 
We care not now that the insatiate storm 
Plunges with leaps of thunder on the east. 

(The music ceases) 

Give me thy hand, dear one, though unto pain 
I crush it to be sure that this be dream, 
Knowing 't was Death that passed, and oh, how 
near! 



n6 IN TESLA'S LABORATORY 



IN TESLA' S LABORATORY 

Here in the dark what ghostly figures press ! — 
No phantom of the Past, or grim or sad ; 
No wailing spirit of woe ; no specter, clad 

In white and wandering cloud, whose dumb distress 

Is that its crime it never may confess ; 

No shape from the strewn sea ; nor they that add 
The link of Life and Death, — the tearless mad, 

That live nor die in dreary nothingness : 

But blessed spirits waiting to be born — 

Thoughts to unlock the fettering chains of Things ; 
The Better Time; the Universal Good. 
Their smile is like the joyous break of morn ; 

How fair, how near, how wistfully they brood ! 
Listen ! that murmur is of angels' wings. 



THE WISTFUL DAYS 117 



THE WISTFUL DAYS 

What is there wanting in the Spring ? 

The air is soft as yesteryear ; 

The happy-nested green is here, 
And half the world is on the wing. 

The morning beckons, and like balm 

Are westward waters blue and calm. 
Yet something 's wanting in the Spring. 

What is it wanting in the Spring ? 
O April, lover to us all, 
What is so poignant in thy thrall 

When children's merry voices ring ? 
What haunts us in the cooing dove 
More subtle than the speech of Love, 

What nameless lack or loss of Spring? 

Let Youth go dally with the Spring, 
Call her the dear, the fair, the young ; 
And all her graces ever sung 

Let him, once more rehearsing, sing. 
They know, who keep a broken tryst, 
Till something from the Spring be missed 

We have not truly known the Spring. 



n8 "LOVE ONCE WAS LIKE AN APRIL DAWN" 



LOVE ONCE WAS LIKE AN APRIL DAWN 

Love once was like an April dawn : 

Song throbbed within the heart by rote, 
And every tint of rose or fawn 
Was greeted by a joyous note. 
How eager was my thought to see 
Into that morning mystery ! 

Love now is like an August noon, 

No spot is empty of its shine ; 
The sun makes silence seem a boon, 
And not a voice so dumb as mine. 

Yet with what words I'd welcome thee— 
Couldst thou return, dear mystery ! 



AN IRISH LO VE-SONG 1 1 9 



AN IRISH LOVE-SONG 

In the years about twenty 

(When kisses are plenty) 
The love of an Irish lass fell to my fate — 

So winsome and sightly, 

So saucy and sprightly, 
The priest was a prophet that christened her Kate. 

Soft gray of the dawning, 

Bright blue of the morning, 
The sweet of her eye there was nothing to mate ; 

A nose like a fairy's, 

A cheek like a cherry's, 
And a smile— well, her smile was like— nothing but Kate. 

To see her was passion, 

To love her, the fashion ; 
What wonder my heart was unwilling to wait! 

And, daring to love her, 

I soon did discover 
A Katharine masking as mischievous Kate. 



120 AN IRISH LOVE-SONG 

No Katy unruly, 

But Katharine, truly — 
Fond, serious, patient, and even sedate ; 

With a glow in her gladness 

That banishes sadness— 
Yet stay ! Should I credit the sunshine to Kate ? 

Love cannot outlive it, 

Wealth cannot o'ergive it— 
That saucy surrender she made at the gate. 

O Time, be but human, 

Spare the girl in the woman ! 
You gave me my Katharine— leave me my Kate ! 



OH, WASTE NO TEARS" 121 



"OH, WASTE NO TEARS" 

Oh, waste no tears on Pain or Fate, 
Nor yet at Sorrow's dire demand ; 

Think not to drown Regret with weight 
Of weeping, as the sea the strand ; 

When was Death's victory less elate 

That Grief o'er-sobbed his grasping hand? 

Not for the flaws of life shall fall 
The tear most exquisite — ah, no ; 

But for its fine perfections all : 
For morning's joyous overflow, 

For sunset's fleeting festival, 

And what midwinter moons may show ; 

For wild-rose breath of Keats's line ; 

For Titian's rivalry of June ; 
For Chopin's tender notes that twine 

The sense in one autumnal tune ; 
For Brunelleschi's dome divine, 

In wonder planned, with worship hewn. 



122 t( 0H, WASTE NO TEARS" 

Save them for heroes — not their blood, 
But for the generous vow it sealed ; 

For babes, when mothers say, " This bud 
Will be the blossom of the field " ; 

For women, when to Vengeance' flood 
They hold for Guilt a stainless shield. 

And when two hearts have closer come, 
Through doubts and mysteries and fears, 

Till in one look's delirium 

At last the happy truth appears, 

When words are weak and music dumb 
Then perfect love shall speak in tears. 



HER SMILE 123 



HER SMILE 

The odor is the rose ; 

The smile, the woman. 
Delights the bud doth sheathe, 
Unfolded, all may breathe. 
So joys that none could know 
Her smiles on all bestow, 

As though a rose were happy to be human! 



124 SONG FOR THE GUITAR 



SONG FOR THE GUITAR 

I grieve to see these tears- 
Long strangers to thine eye— 
These jewels that fond years 
For me could never buy. 
Weep, weep, and give thy heart relief. 
I grieve, but 't is not for thy grief : 

Not for these tears— they were 

Another's ere they fell- 
But those that never stir 

The fountain where they dwell. 
I 'd smile, though thou shouldst weep a sea, 
Were but a single tear for me ! 



URSULA 125 



URSULA 

I see her in the festal warmth to-night, 
Her rest all grace, her motion all delight. 
Endowed with all the woman's arts that please, 
In her soft gown she seems a thing of ease, 
Whom sorrow may not reach or evil blight. 

To-morrow she will toil from floor to floor 
To smile upon the unreplying poor, 
To stay the tears of widows, and to be 
Confessor to men's erring hearts ... ah me ! 
She knows not I am beggar at her door. 



126 A DARK DAY 



A DARK DAY 

Gloom of a leaden sky- 
Too heavy for hope to move ; 

Grief in my heart to vie 

With the dark distress above ; 

Yet happy, happy am I — 
For I sorrow with her I love. 



THE SURPRISED AVOWAL 127 



THE SURPRISED AVOWAL 

When one word is spoken, 
When one look you see, 

When you take the token, 
Howe'er so slight it be, 

The cage's bolt is broken, 
The happy bird is free. 

There is no unsaying 
That love-startled word ; 

It were idle praying 
It no more be heard ; 

Yet, its law obeying, 

Who shall blame the bird? 

What avails the mending 
Where the cage was weak? 

What avails the sending 
Far, the bird to seek, 

When every cloud is lending 
Wings toward yonder peak? 



128 THE SURPRISED AVOWAL 

Thrush, could they recapture 
You to newer wrong, 

How could you adapt your 
Strain to suit the throng? 

Gone would be the rapture 
Of unimprisoned song. 



THE BLOSSOM OF THE SOUL 129 



THE BLOSSOM OF THE SOUL 

Thou half-unfolded flower 
With fragrance-laden heart, 

What is the secret power 
That doth thy petals part? 

What gave thee most thy hue — 

The sunshine, or the dew? 

Thou wonder-wakened soul! 

As Dawn doth steal on Night 
On thee soft Love hath stole. 

Thine eye, that blooms with light, 
What makes its charm so new — 
Its sunshine, or its dew? 



130 "I JOURNEYED SOUTH TO MEET THE SPRING " 



I JOURNEYED SOUTH TO MEET THE 
SPRING " 

I journeyed South to meet the Spring, 

To feel the soft tide's gentle rise 
That to my heart again should bring, 
Foretold by many a whispering wing, 

The old, the new, the sweet surprise. 

For once, the wonder was not new — 

And yet it wore a newer grace : 
For all its innocence of hue, 
Its warmth and bloom and dream and dew, 

I had but left — in Helen's face. 



PARAPHRASES FROM THE SERVIAN 

OF 

ZMAI IOVAN IOVANOVICH 
AFTER LITERAL TRANSLATIONS 

BY 

NIKOLA TESLA 



Attention is called to the 
fact that since the publica- 
tion, in I Spy, of this intro- 
ductory note by Mr. Tesla, 
both Zmai and his hero, 
Luka Filipov, have died. 




INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

BY 

Mr. TESLA 



ZMAI IOVAN IOVANOVICH 



THE CHIEF SERVIAN POET OF TO-DAY 

Hardly is there a nation which has met with a sad- 
der fate than the Servian. From the height of its 
splendor, when the empire embraced almost the entire 
northern part of the Balkan peninsula and a large por- 
tion of the territory now belonging to Austria, the Ser- 
vian nation was plunged into abject slavery, after the 
fatal battle of 1389 at the Kosovo Polje, against the 
overwhelming Asiatic hordes. Europe can never repay 
the great debt it owes to the Servians for checking, by 
the sacrifice of their own liberty, that barbarian influx. 
The Poles at Vienna, under Sobieski, finished what the 
Servians attempted, and were similarly rewarded for 
their service to civilization. 

It was at the Kosovo Polje that Milosh Obilich, the 
noblest of Servian heroes, fell, after killing the Sultan 
Murat II. in the very midst of his great army. Were 
it not that it is an historical fact, one would be apt to 
consider this episode a myth, evolved by contact with 
the Greek and Latin races. For in Milosh we see both 

*35 



136 INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON ZMAI 

Leonidas and Mucius, and, more than this, a martyr, 
for he does not die an easy death on the battle-field like 
the Greek, but pays for his daring deed with a death of 
fearful torture. It is not astonishing that the poetry of 
a nation capable of producing such heroes should be 
pervaded with a spirit of nobility and chivalry. Even 
the indomitable Marko Kraljevich, the later incarnation 
of Servian heroism, when vanquishing Musa, the Mos- 
lem chief, exclaims, "Woe unto me, for I have killed 
a better man than myself! " 

From that fatal battle until a recent period, it has 
been black night for the Servians, with but a single star 
in the firmament — Montenegro. In this gloom there 
was no hope for science, commerce, art, or industry. 
What could they do, this brave people, save to keep up 
the weary fight against the oppressor? And this they 
did unceasingly, though the odds were twenty to one. 
Yet fighting merely satisfied their wilder instincts. 
There was one more thing they could do, and did : the 
noble feats of their ancestors, the brave deeds of those 
who fell in the struggle for liberty, they embodied in 
immortal song. Thus circumstances and innate quali- 
ties made the Servians a nation of thinkers and poets, 
and thus, gradually, were evolved their magnificent 
national poems, which were first collected by their most 
prolific writer, Vuk Stefanovich Karajich, who also 
compiled the first dictionary of the Servian tongue, 
containing more than sixty thousand words. These 
national poems Goethe considered fit to match the finest 
productions of the Greeks and Romans. What would 
he have thought of them had he been a Servian? 

While the Servians have been distinguished in national 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON ZMAI 137 

poetry, they have also had many individual poets who 
attained greatness. Of contemporaries there is none 
who has grown so dear to the younger generation as 
Zmai Iovan Iovanovich. He was born in Novi Sad 
(Neusatz), a city at the southern border of Hungary, on 
November 24, 1833. He comes from an old and noble 
family, which is related to the Servian royal house. In 
his earliest childhood he showed a great desire to learn 
by heart the Servian national songs which were recited 
to him, and even as a child he began to compose poems. 
His father, who was a highly cultivated and wealthy 
gentleman, gave him his first education in his native 
city. After this he went to Budapest, Prague, and 
Vienna, and in these cities he finished his studies in law. 
This was the wish of his father, but his own inclinations 
prompted him to take up the study of medicine. He 
then returned to his native city, where a prominent 
official position was offered him, which he accepted; 
but so strong were his poetical instincts that a year later 
he abandoned the post to devote himself entirely to 
literary work. 

His literary career began in 1849, his first poem being 
printed in 1852, in a journal called "Srbski Letopis " 
(" Servian Annual Review ") ; to this and to other jour- 
nals, notably " Neven " and " Sedmica," he contributed 
his early productions. From that period until 1870, 
besides his original poems, he made many beautiful 
translations from Petefy and Arany, the two greatest of 
the Hungarian poets, and from the Russian of Lermon- 
tof, as well as from German and other poets. In 1861 
he edited the comic journal, "Komarac" ("The Mos- 
quito"), and in the same year he started the literary 



138 INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON ZMAI 

journal, "Javor," and to these papers he contributed 
many beautiful poems. In 1861 he married, and 
during the few happy years that followed he produced 
his admirable series of lyrical poems called " Giulichi," 
which probably remain his masterpiece. In 1862, 
greatly to his regret, he discontinued his beloved jour- 
nal, "Javor" — a sacrifice which was asked of him by 
the great Servian patriot, Miletich, who was then active 
on a political journal, in order to insure the success of 
the latter. 

In 1863 he was elected director of an educational 
institution, called the Tekelianum, at Budapest. He 
now ardently renewed the study of medicine at the uni- 
versity, and took the degree of doctor of medicine. 
Meanwhile he did not relax his literary labors. Yet, 
for his countrymen, more valuable even than his splen- 
did productions were his noble and unselfish efforts to 
nourish the enthusiasm of Servian youth. During his 
stay in Budapest he founded the literary society Preod- 
nica, of which he was president, and to which he de- 
voted a large portion of his energies. 

In 1864 he started his famous satirical journal, "Zmai" 
("The Dragon "), which was so popular that the name 
became a part of his own. In 1866 his comic play 
"Sharan" was given with great success. In 1872 he 
had the great pain of losing his wife, and, shortly after, 
his only child. How much these misfortunes affected 
him is plainly perceptible from the deeply sad tone of 
the poems which immediately followed. In 1873 he 
started another comic journal, the " Ziza." During the 
year 1877 he began an illustrated chronicle of the Russo- 
Turkish war, and in 1878 appeared his popular comic 



INTROD UCTOR Y NO TE ON ZMAI 1 39 

journal, " Starmali." During all this period he wrote 
not only poems, but much prose, including short novels, 
often under an assumed name. The best of these is 
probably " Vidosava Brankovicheva." In recent years 
he has published a great many charming little poems for 
children. 

Since 1870 Zmai has pursued his profession as a phy- 
sician. He is an earnest advocate of cremation, and 
has devoted much time to the furtherance of that cause. 
Until recently he was a resident of Vienna, but now he 
is domiciled in Belgrade. There he lives the life of a 
true poet, loving all and beloved by everybody. In 
recognition of his merit, the nation has voted him a 
subvention. 

The poems of Zmai are so essentially Servian that to 
translate them into another tongue appears next to 
impossible. In keen satire free from Voltairian venom, 
in good-hearted and spontaneous humor, in delicacy 
and depth of expression, they are remarkable. Mr. 
Johnson has undertaken the task of versifying a few of 
the shorter ones after my literal and inadequate readings. 
Close translation being often out of the question, he has 
had to paraphrase, following as nearly as possible the 
original motives and ideas. In some instances he has ex- 
panded in order to complete a picture or to add a touch 
of his own. The poems which follow will give some 
idea of the versatility of the Servian poet, but come far 
short of indicating his range. 

Nikola Tesla. 

New York City. 



THE THREE GIAOURS 141 



THE THREE GIAOURS 

In the midst of the dark and stormy night 

Feruz Pacha awakes in fright, 

And springs from out his curtained bed. 

The candle trembles as though it read 

Upon his pallid face the theme 

And terror of his nightly dream. 

He calls to his startled favorite : 
M The keys ! the keys of the dungeon-pit ! 
Cannot those cursed Giaours stay 
There in their own dark, rotting away, 
Where I gave them leave three years ago ? 
Had I but buried their bones ! — but, no ! 
They come at midnight to clatter and creep, 
And haunt and threaten me in my sleep." 

" Pacha, wait till the morning light ! 
Do not go down that fearful flight 



142 THE THREE GIAOURS 

Where every step is a dead man's moan ! 
Mujo to-morrow will gather each bone 
And bury it deep. Let the Giaours freeze 
If thy bed be warm." 

" Nay, give me the keys. 
Girl, you talk like a wrinkled dame 
That shudders at whisper of a name. 
When they were living, their curses made 
A thousand cowards : was I afraid ? 
Now they are dead, shall my fear begin 
With the Giaour's curse, or the skeleton's grin ? 
No, I must see them face to face 
In the very midst of their dwelling-place, 
And find what need they have of me 
That they call my name eternally." 

As groping along to the stair he goes, 

The light of the shaking candle shows 

A face like a white and faded rose ; 

But if this be fear, it is fear to stay, 

For something urges him on his way — 

Though the steps are cold and the echoes mock— 

Till the right key screams in the rusted lock. 

Ugh ! what a blast from the dungeon dank ! — 
From the place where Hunger and Death were wed ; 
Whence even the snakes by instinct fled, 



THE THREE GIAOURS 143 

While the very lizards crouched and shrank 
In a chill of terror. 'T is inky black 
And icy cold, but he cannot go back, 
For there, as though the darkness flowers — 
There sit the skeletons of three Giaours 
Ghost- white in the flickering candle-gleam ! — 
(Or is it the remnant of his dream ?) 
About a stone that is green with mold 
They sit in a group, and their fingers hold 
Full glasses, and as the glasses clink 
The first Giaour beckons him to drink. 

" Pacha, here is a glass for thee ! 

When last on me the sunlight shone 
I had a wife who was dear to me. 

She was alone — no, not alone ; 
The blade in her hand was her comrade true, 
As she came to your castle, seeking you. 

" And when she came to your castle gate 
She dared you forth, but you would not go. 

Fiend and coward, you could not wait 
For a woman's wrath, but shot her, so. 

Her heart fell down in a piteous flood. 

This glass is filled with her precious blood. 

" See how fine as I hold it up ! 

Drink, Feruz Pacha, the brimming cup ! " 



144 THE THREE GIAOURS 

Spellbound the Pacha now draws nigh ; 
He empties the glass with a sudden cry : 
The skeletons drink with a laugh and toss, 
And they make the sign of the holy cross. 

Then speaks the second of the dead : 

" When to this darkness I was led, 

My mother asked, ' What sum will give 

Your prisoner back to the sun ? p You said, 
' Three measures of gold, and the dog shall 
live.' 

Through pinching toil by noon and night 

She saved and saved till her hope grew bright. 

" But when she brought you the yellow hoard, 
You mocked at the drops on her tired brow, 

And said, 'Toward the pay for his wholesome 
board 
Of good round stones I will this allow.' 

She died while her face with toil was wet. 

This glass is filled with her faithful sweat. 

" See how fine as I hold it up ! 

Drink, Feruz Pacha, the brimming cup ! " 

Haggard the Pacha now stands by ; 
He drains the glass with a stifled cry : 



THE THREE GIAOURS 145 

Again they drink with a laugh and toss, 

And the third one says, as his comrades cross : 

" When this black shadow on me fell, 
There sang within my mountain home 

My one pale lad. Bethought him well 
That he would to my rescue come ; 

But when he tried to lift the gun 

He tottered till the tears would run. 

" Though vengeance sped his weary feet, 
Too late he came. Then back he crept,— 

Forgot to drink, forgot to eat, — 
And no slow moment went unwept. 

He died of grief at his meager years. 

This glass is laden with his tears. 

" See how fine as I hold it up ! 

Drink, Feruz Pacha, the brimming cup ! " 

The Pacha staggers ; he holds it high ; 
He drinks ; he falls with a moan and cry : 
They laugh, they cross, but they drink no more— 
For the dead in the dungeon-cave are four. 



10 



146 LUKA FILIPOV 



LUKA FILIPOV 

(AN INCIDENT OF THE MONTENEGRIN WAR OF 1 876-78) 

One more hero to be part 

Of the Servians' glory ! 
Lute to lute and heart to heart 

Tell the homely story ; 
Let the Moslem hide for shame, 
Trembling like the falcon's game, 
Thinking on the falcon's name — 
Luka Filipov. 

When he fought with sword and gun 

Doughty was he reckoned ; 
When he was the foremost, none 

Blushed to be the second. 
But he tired of the taint 
Of the Turk's blood, learned restraint 
From his sated sword— the quaint 
Luka Filipov. 



LUKA FILIPOV 

Thus he reasoned : Though they fall 

Like the grass in mowing, 
Yet the dead Turks, after all, 

Make a sorry showing. 
Foes that die remember not 
How our Montenegrins bought 
Our unbroken freedom — thought 
Luka Filipov. 

So, in last year's battle-storm 

Swooped our Servian falcon, 
Chose the sleekest of the swarm 

From beyond the Balkan : 
Plucked a pacha from his horse, 
Carried him away by force, 
While we cheered along his course : 
"Luka!" "Filipov!" 

To the Prince his prize he bore 

Just as he had won him — 
Laid him at the Prince's door, 

Not a scratch upon him. 
" Prince, a present ! And for fear 
He should find it lonely here, 
I will fetch his mate," said queer 
Luka Filipov. 



J 47 



148 LUKA FILIPOV 

Back into the fight he rushed 

Where the Turks were flying, 
Past his kinsmen boldly brushed, 

Leaping dead and dying : 
Seized a stalwart infidel, 
Wrenched his gun and, like a spell, 
Marched him back — him heeding well 
Luka Filipov. 

But the Moslems, catching breath 

Mid their helter-skelter, 
Poured upon him hail of death 

From a rocky shelter, 
Till a devil-guided ball 
Striking one yet wounded all : 
For there staggered, nigh to fall, 
Luka Filipov ! 

Paused the conflict— all intent 

On the two before us ; 
And the Turkish regiment 

Cheered in hideous chorus 
As the prisoner, half afraid, 
Turned and started up the glade, 
Thinking — dullard ! — to evade 
Luka Filipov. 



LUKA FILIPOV 149 

We *d have fired — but Luka's hand 

Rose in protestation, 
While his pistol's mute command 

Needed no translation ; 
For the Turk retraced his track, 
Knelt and took upon his back 
(As a peddler shifts his pack) 
Luka Filipov ! 

How we cheered him as he passed 

Through the line, a-swinging 
Gun and pistol — bleeding fast — 

Grim — but loudly singing : 
" Lucky me to find a steed 
Fit to give the Prince for speed ! 
Rein or saddle ne'er shall need 
Luka Filipov ! " 

So he urged him to the tent 

Where the Prince was resting — 
Brought his captive, shamed and spent, 

To make true his jesting. 
And as couriers came to say 
That our friends had won the day, 
Who should up and faint away ? 
Luka Filipov. 



150 A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 



A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 



Three sons she has of Servian mold 
As balsam for her widow's grief, 

While in her Danka all behold 
A treasure precious past belief. 

Oh, lovely Danka ! happy she, 
More fortunate than all beside, 

To be the pride of brothers three, 
Themselves of Bosnia the pride ! 

In her they glory ; she inspires 
To freedom's never-ending fight, 

And in their hearts burn patriot fires, 
As stars upon the Turkish night. 

And often at the mother's door 

Tears mingle with the words that bless 



A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 151 

" O gods of battle ! guard my four — 
My falcons and my falconess." 



11 



Her radiant beauty nothing hides— 
What wonder that the Turk has seen, 

And as before her door he rides 
The Raven- Aga calls her queen ! 

For three nights has he lain awake — 
To call on Allah ? Nay, till dawn 

Calling on Danka, for whose sake 
His heart is sore, his brow is wan. 

He gathers warriors ere the sun ; 

They gallop quickly through the murk ; 
And Danka, at the signal-gun, 

Cries, " Save me, brothers ! —'tis the Turk ! " 

Now flash the rifles, speeds the fight, 
Till, shamed, the Raven-Aga flies. 

Alas for Danka ! in her sight 
One lion-hearted brother dies. 



152 A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 

Again the infidel appears, 

And at his heels ride forty guns ; 

But at the voice of Danka's fears 
Red many a Turkish stirrup runs. 

But, oh, at vespers, when once more 
The baffled Raven back has fled, 

Across the sill of Danka's door 
There lies another brother, dead. 
• •••••• 

The Turkish devil once again 

Summons each savage wedding-guest, 

And half a hundred to be slain 

Go forth at midnight toward the west. 

Once more the stealthy Moslems ride, 
Once more the Servians gather fast, 

As Danka summons to her side 
Her brother— and her last. 

The fight grows fiercer, till the dead 
Fill the dim street from wall to wall. 

Call on thy mother, Battle-wed— 
Thou hast no brother left to call ! 

The Raven seizes her and croaks : 

" At last thou art my bride, proud maid ! " 



A MOTHER OF BOSNIA 153 

" Not thine — my yataghan's ! " Two strokes — 
Her warm heart weds the loyal blade. 



in 

Dark is the night as on the slopes 
Of that deserted battle-ground 

The mother, crazed with sorrow, gropes 
Until her sons' three swords are found. 

And as she roams through Servian lands 
(Her mirth more piteous than tears) 

She bears a blade in her thin hands 
To right the wrongs of many years. 

And offering Danka's plighted knife 
Or one of those three patriot swords, 

She calls the coldest rock to strife, — 
" Take, and repel the Turkish hordes ! " 

And as the rock no word replies, 

She asks, " Are you not Servian too ? 

Why are you silent then ?" she cries; 
" Is there no living heart in you ? " 

She treads the dreary night alone ; 
There is no echo to her moan. . . . 
Is every heart a heart of stone ? 



154 THE MONSTER 



THE MONSTER 

" In place of the heart, a serpent ; 

Rage — for the mind's command ; 
An eye aflame with wildness ; 

A weapon in the hand ; 

" A brow with midnight clouded ; 

On the lips a cynic smile 
That tells of a curse unmatchable— 

Born of a sin most vile. 

" Of longing, or hope, or virtue, 
No vestige may there be ; 

You, even in vice inhuman — 
What can you want of me ? 

" You in its maddest moment 
The Deepest Pit designed,— 

Let loose to sow confusion 
In the order of mankind ; 



THE MONSTER 155 

u Here Hatred found you crawling 

Like vermin, groveling, prone, 
Filled you with blood of others 

And poisoned all your own. 

" Your very thoughts are fiendish — 

Smoke of the fires of Hell. 
Weird as you are, how is it 

I seem to know you well ? 

" Why with your wild delirium 

Do you infect my sleep ? 
Why with my daily footstep 

An equal measure keep ? " 



The monster mutely beckons me 
Back with his ghostly hand, 

And dreading his fearful answer 
I heed the grim command. 

" Nay, softly," he says ; " I pray thee, 
Silence thy frightened moan, 

And wipe the sweat from thy forehead ; 
My kinsman thou, my own! 



156 THE MONSTER 

" Look at me well, good cousin ; 

Such wert thou fashioned of ! 
Thou, too, wouldst me resemble 

Without that magic — Love!" 



TWO DREAMS 



*57 



TWO DREAMS 

Deep on the bosom of Jeel-Begzad 
(Darling daughter of stern Bidar) 

Sleeps the rose of her lover lad. 

It brings this word : When the zenith-star 

Melts in the full moon's rising light. 

Then shall her Giaour come — to-night. 

What is the odor that fills her room ? 

Ah ! 't is the dream of the sleeping rose : 
To feel his lips near its velvet bloom 

In the secret shadow no moonbeam knows, 
Till the maiden passion within her breast 
Kindles to flame where the kisses rest. 

By the stealthy fingers of old Bidar 

(Savage father of Jeel-Begzad) 
Never bloodless in peace or war 

Was a handjar sheathed ; and each one had 
Graved on its handle a Koran prayer — 
He can feel it now, in his ambush there ! 



158 TWO DREAMS 

The moon rides pale in the quiet night ; 

It puts out the stars, but never the gleam 
Of the waiting blade's foreboding light, 

Astir in its sheath in a horrid dream 
Of pain, of blood, and of gasping breath, 
Of the thirst of vengeance drenched in death. 

The dawn did the dream of the rose undo, 
But the dream of the sleeping blade came true. 



MYSTERIOUS LOVE 159 



MYSTERIOUS LOVE 

Into the air I breathed a sigh ; 

She, afar, another breathed — 
Sighs that, like a butterfly, 
Each went wandering low and high, 

Till the air with sighs was wreathed, 

When each other long they sought, 

On a star-o'er-twinkled hill 
Jasmine, trembling with the thought, 
Both within her chalice caught, 
A lover's potion to distil. 

Drank of this a nightingale, 

Guided by the starlight wan — 
Drank and sang from dale to dale, 
Till every streamlet did exhale 
Incense to the waking dawn. 

Like the dawn, the maiden heard ; 
While, afar, I felt the fire 



160 MYSTERIOUS LOVE 

In the bosom of the bird ; 
Forth our sighs again were stirred 
With a sevenfold desire. 

These we followed till we learned 
Where they trysted ; there erelong 

Their fond nightingale returned. 

Deeper then our longings burned, 
Deeper the delights of song. 

Now, when at the wakening hour, 

Sigh to sigh, we greet his lay, 
Well we know its mystic power — 
Feeling dawn and bird and flower 
Pouring meaning into May. 

Jasmine, perfume every grove ! 

Nightingale, forever sing 
To the brightening dawn above 
Of the mystery of love 

In the mystery of spring ! 



THE COMING OF SONG 161 



THE COMING OF SONG 

When the sky darkened on the first great sin, 

And gates that shut man out shut Hope within, 

Like to the falcon when his wing is broke, 

The bitter cry of mortals then awoke : 

" Too heavy is our burden," groaned the two. 

" Shall woes forever on our track pursue, 

And nest within these empty hearts ? Or, worse, 

Shall we be withered by the cruel curse ? 

Already less than human, shall we fall 

By slow succession to some animal ? " 

Then, filled with pity at the desperate cry, 

Came from His throne of thunder the Most High : 

" That you should suffer " (spake the Voice) " is just 

'T is you have chosen for a feast a crust. 

But not so unrelenting I — the least 

Of all your kind shall be above the beast. 

That erring mortals be not lost in fear, 

Come from My shining courts, O daughter dear ! 
11 



1 62 THE COMING OF SONG 

Thou dost to heaven, shalt to earth belong." 
She came; she stayed: it was the Muse of Song. 

Again the day was radiant with light, 

And something more than stars illumed the night. 

Hope, beckoning, to the desert took its flight. 

Where is Pain and dire Distress, 
Song shall soothe like soft caress ; 
Though the stoutest courage fails, 
Song 's an anchor in all gales ; 
When all others fail to reach, 
Song shall be the thrilling speech ; 
Love and friends and comfort fled, 
Song shall linger by your bed ; 
And when Doubt shall question, Why ? 
Song shall lift you to the sky. 



CURSES 163 



CURSES 

Fain would I curse thee, sweet unkind! 

That thou art fair ; 
Fain curse my mother, that not blind 

She did me bear ; 
But, no ! — each curse would break, not bind, 

The heart ye share. 



1 64 A FA IKY FROM THE SUN-SHOWER 



A FAIRY FROM THE SUN-SHOWER 

[When the Servians see the sun-rays of a summer shower they 
say it is the fairies combing their hair.] 

Over the meadow a shower is roaming ; 

Just beyond is the summer sun ; 
Fair is the hair that the fays are combing — 

Myth come true ! here 's my dainty one 
Tripping the path in the wind's soft blowing ; 
Her slender form through her gown is showing, 
Her foot scarce whispers the way she 's going. 

" Come, my bright one, come, my soul, 

Let my kisses be your goal." 

But the path has heard my sighing, 

Turns aside, and leads my fay 
Into the forest, love defying. 

Path, accursed be ! — but stay ! 
Lost to love each moment gliding, 
What if in the woodland hiding 
Still for me my fay be biding ! . . . 

" Wait, my bright one, wait, my soul, 

Your sweet kisses are my goal." 



FRAGMENT FROM THE " GIULICHE" 165 



"WHY," YOU ASK, "HAS NOT THE 
SERVIAN PERISHED ?" 

FRAGMENT FROM THE " GIULICHE " ("JEWELS ") 

"Why," you ask, "has not the Servian perished, 
Such calamities about him throng ? " 

With the sword alike the lyre he cherished : 
He is saved by Song! 



1 66 "/ BEGGED A KISS OF A LITTLE MAID" 



I BEGGED A KISS OF A LITTLE MAID" 

I begged a kiss of a little maid ; 

Shyly, sweetly, she consented ; 
Then of a sudden, all afraid, 

After she gave it, she repented ; 
And now as penance for that one kiss 
She asks a poem — I '11 give her this. 

But how can my song be my very best 
When she, with a voice as soft as Circe's, 

Has charmed the heart from my lonely breast — 
The heart, the fountain of all true verses ? 

Why, oh, why should a maid do this ? 

No — I must give her back her kiss. 



WHY THE ARMY BECAME QUIET 167 



WHY THE ARMY BECAME QUIET 

Some said they did but play at war, — 
How that may be, ah ! who can tell ? 

I know the gallant army corps 
Upon their fleeing foemen fell, 

And sacked their camp, and took their town, 

And won both victory and renown. 

Now home returning, wild with song, 
They come, the colors flying free. 

But as within the door they throng, 
Why does the army suddenly 

Hush the fierce din, and silence keep ? — 

Why, little brother is asleep. 



1 68 THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 



THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 

You 're admiring my horse, sir, I see. 

He 's so light that you 'd think it 's a bird- 
Say a swallow. Ah me ! 

He 's a prize ! 

It 's absurd 
To suppose you can take him all in as he passes 

With the best pair of eyes, 

Or the powerful aid 
Of your best pair of glasses : 

Take 'em off, and let 's trade. 

What ! " Is Selim as good as he seems ? " 

Never fear, 

Uncle dear, 
He 's as good as the best of your dreams, 

And as sound as your sleep. 

It 's only that kind that a gipsy would keep. 
The emperor's stables can't furnish his mate. 
But his grit and his gait, 



THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 169 

And his wind and his ways, 

A gipsy like me does n't know how to praise. 
But (if truth must be told) 
Although you should cover him over with gold 
He 'd be worth one more sovereign still. 

" Is he old ? " 
Oh, don't look at his teeth, my dear sir ! 
I never have seen 'em myself. 
Age has nothing to do with an elf ; 
So it 's fair to infer 
My fairy can never grow old. 
Oh, don't look — (Here, my friend, 
Will you do me the kindness to hold 
For a moment these reins while I 'tend 
To that fly on his shanks ?) . . . 
As I said — (Ah — now — thanks !) 
The longer you drive 
The better he '11 thrive. 
He '11 never be laid on the shelf ! 

The older that colt is, the younger he '11 grow. 
I 've tried him for years, and I know. 

" Eat ? Eat ? " do you say ? 

Oh, that nag is n't nice 

About eating ! Whatever you have will suffice. 



170 THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 

He takes everything raw — 
Some oats or some hay, 

Or a small wisp of straw, 

If you have it. If not, never mind — 
Selim won't even neigh. 
What kind of a feeder is he ? That 's the kind ! 

" Is he clever at jumping a fence ? " 
What a question to ask ! He 's immense 

At a leap ! 

How absurd ! 

Why, the trouble 's to keep 
Such a Pegasus down to the ground. 
He takes every fence at a bound 
With the grace of a bird ; 

And so great is his strength, 

And so keen is his sense, 

He goes over a fence 
Not across, but the way of its length ! 

" Under saddle ? " No saddle for Selim ! 
Why, you 've only to mount him, and feel him 

Fly level and steady, to see 

What disgrace that would be. 
No, you could n't more deeply insult him, unless 
You attempted to guess 

And pry into his pedigree. 



THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 171 

Now why should you speak of his eyes ? 

Does he seem like a horse that would need 

An eye-glass to add to his speed 
Or, perchance, to look wise ? 

No indeed. 

Why, not only 's the night to that steed 
Just the same as the day, 

But he knows all that passes— 
Both before and behind, either way. 

Oh, he does n't need glasses ! 

11 Has he any defect ? " What a question, my friend ! 

That is why, my dear sir, I am willing to sell. 

You know very well 
It is only the horse that you give or you lend 
That has glanders, or springhalt, or something to mend : 

'T is because not a breath 

Of defect or of death 
Can be found on my Selim that he *s at your pleasure. 
Alas ! not for gipsies the care of such treasure. 

And now about speed. " Is he fast ? " I should say ! 
Just listen — I '11 tell you. 

One equinox day, 
Coming home from Erdout in the usual way, 
A terrible storm overtook us. 'T was plain 
There was nothing to do but to run for it. Rain, 



I7 2 THE GIPSY PRAISES HIS HORSE 

Like the blackness of night, gave us chase. But that nag, 
Though he 'd had a hard day, did n't tremble or sag. 

Then the lightning would flash, 

And the thunder would crash 

With a terrible din. 
They were eager to catch him ; but he would just neigh, 
Squint back to make sure, and then gallop away. 
Well, this made the storm the more furious yet, 
And we raced and we raced, but he was n't upset, 

And he would n't give in ! 
At last when we got to the foot of the hill 

At the end of the trail, 
By the stream where our white gipsy castle was set, 
And the boys from the camp came a-waving their caps, 

At a word he stood still, 
To be hugged by the girls and be praised by the chaps. 

We had beaten the gale, 
And Selim was dry as a bone— well, perhaps, 

Just a little bit damp on the tip of his tail.* 

* Readers will be reminded by this conclusion of Mark Twain's 
story of the fast horse as told to him by Oudinot, of the Sandwich 
Islands, and recorded in " The Galaxy" for April, 1871. In that 
veracious narrative it is related that not a single drop fell on the 
driver, but the dog was swimming behind the wagon all the way. 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 177 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

Silence was envious of the only voice 

That mightier seemed than she. So, cloaked as Death, 

With potion borrowed from Oblivion, 

Yet with slow step and tear-averted look, 

She sealed his lips, closed his extinguished eyes, 

And veiling him with darkness, deemed him dead. 

But no ! — There 's something vital in the great 

That blunts the edge of Death, and sages say 

You should stab deep if you would kill a king. 

In vain ! The conqueror's conqueror he remains, 

Surviving his survivors. And as when, 

The prophet gone, his least disciple stands 

Newly invested with a twilight awe, 

So linger men beside his listeners 

While they recount that miracle of speech 

And the hushed wonder over which it fell. 

What do they tell us of that fabled voice? 

Breathing an upper air, wherein he dwelt 

'Mid shifting clouds a mountain of resolve, 

And falling like Sierra's April flood 
12 



I7 8 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

That pours in ponderous cadence from the cliff, 
Waking Yosemite from her sleep of snow, 
And less by warmth than by its massive power 
Thawing a thousand torrents into one. 
Such was his speech, and were his fame to die 
Such for its requiem alone were fit : 
Some kindred voice of Nature, as the Sea 
When autumn tides redouble their lament 
On Marshfield shore ; some elemental force 
Kindred to Nature in the mind of man — 
A far-felt, rhythmic, and resounding wave 
Of Homer, or a freedom-breathing wind 
Sweeping the height of Milton's loftiest mood. 
Most fit of all, could his own words pronounce 
His eulogy, eclipsing old with new, 
As though a dying star should burst in light. 

And yet he spoke not only with his voice. 

His full brow, buttressing a dome of thought, 

Moved the imagination like the rise 

Of some vast temple covering nothing mean. 

His eyes were sibyls' caves, wherein the wise 

Read sibyls' secrets ; and the iron clasp 

Of those broad lips, serene or saturnine, 

Made proclamation of majestic will. 

His glance could silence like a frowning Fate. 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 179 

His mighty frame was refuge, while his mien 
Did make dispute of stature with the gods. 

See, in the Senate, how his presence towers 

Above the tallest, who but seem as marks 

To guide the unwonted gaze to where he stands, 

First of his peers — a lordly company. 

Each State still gave the others of its best — 

Our second race of giants, now, alas! 

Buried beneath the lava-beds of war. 

Not yet had weaklings trod the purchased path 

To a feigned honor in the curule chair, 

Holding a world's contempt of them for fame — 

As one should take the leaves stripped from his scourge 

To wreathe himself a counterfeit of bay. 

An age is merely Man, and, thus compact, 

Must grimly expiate paternal sins ; 

That age's shame stands naked to the world, 

And no man dares to hide it ; yet one boast 

Palsies the pointing finger of to-day : 

1 T was slave , not master, that ive bought and sold. 

Oh for fit word of scorn to execrate 
Our brood new-born of Greed and Liberty! 
Not the blind mass of stumbling ignorance 
(For the dread portent of a blackening cloud 



180 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

May by bold shafts of sunlight be dispersed), 
But those who lead them to the nation's hurt — 
These our kind neighbors, semblances of men, 
The Church's bulwark, the beloved of homes, 
Locked fast in friendship's ever-loyal pledge, 
Yet to whom treason is their daily breath. 
Not Lucifer, on each conspiring wind 
Rallying his abject crew to new assaults; 
Not all the recreant names that spawning War 
Has cursed with immortality, can match 
The craft of their betrayals. All is sold : 
Law, justice, mercy, and the future's hope — 
This land that buoys the fainting fears of Man. 
Yet to praise Webster one of these has dared! — 
Webster, undaunted by the hour's reproof, 
Webster, untempted by the hour's applause, 
Wlio scorned to win by any art but truth! 
Who, had he heard the impious flattery, 
Across the Senate would have launched his wrath, 
Like Cicero on cowering Catiline, 
In one white passion that forevermore 
Had saved to Infamy an empty name 
That now he spurns in silence from his grave. 

Yet had he frailties, which let those recount 
Who have not seen the nigh-o'erwhelmed state 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 181 

Rescued from peril by some roisterer's skill 

While all the petted virtues of the home 

Stood pale and helpless. Time 's a mountain-wall 

That gives a fainter echo to one's best, 

But unto weak or wanting, mere disdain. 

He had his passions — all but one are dead : 

That was his country. Never lover loved, 

Soldier defended, poet praised, as he, 

Who marveled all should worship not his queen, 

And unto whoso loved her much forgave. 

And when, one desperate day, the threatening hand 

His hand so long arrested, he being gone, 

Felt 'neath its pillow for the unsheath'd sword, 

Who spoke for Union but with Webster's voice? 

Who struck for Union but with Webster's arm? 

Forgetful of the father in the son, 

Men praised in Lincoln what they blamed in him. 

And though, his natural tenderness growm grave, 

He lives not in Love's immortality 

Like Lincoln, shrined within his foeman's heart ; 

Though he trod not the path of him whose soul 

Triumphed in song that beckoned armies on 

More than persuading drum, dare-devil fife, 

Or clarion bugle ; though no battle-flame 

Rose to a peak in him : yet was his blood 

In heroes and his wrath in righteous war. 



1 82 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

Then did the vision of his patriot hope, 
Pictured in pleading but in warning words, 
Inspire the inspirers, nerve the halting brave, 
Make triflers solemn with the choice of death. 
And when at last came Peace, the friend of all, 
Grateful and wondrous as first drops of rain 
After the long starvation of the drought, 
Men harkened back to that prophetic hour 
When two protagonists, like chosen knights, 
Made long and suave epitome of war : 
When Hayne arose \ was Sumter's gun was heard, 
When W T ebster closed 't was Appomattox field. 

But oh, his larger triumph was to come! 

His voice, in victory potent, was in peace 

Predominant. His all-benignant thought 

That, never wavering through the strife of words, 

No Alleghanies, no Potomac knew, 

Searching the future to bring olive back, 

Lived like a fragrance in the heart of Grant, 

And at the perilous moment of success 

Pointed the path to concord from the grave. 

And what famed concord! — not a grudging truce, 

Nor interlude of hate, but peace divine : 

When hands with blood still wet again were clasped, 

Each foe forgiving what is ne'er forgot; 



THE VOICE OE WEBSTER 183 

The hacked sword eager for the scabbard's rest, 

Not from the fear, but for the love of man. 

O loftier conquest of the Blue that warred 

For freedom, not for conquest! Victory, 

Unsought, of all the hardly vanquished Gray! 

Marvel of Europe staggering in arms ; 

Message of Hope unto the souls that herd 

Dumb at the slaughter for the whim of kings ; 

Lusus of History until wars shall cease. 

My country! since nor memory of strife, 

Nor natural vengeance, nor the orphan's tears 

Can from Love's nobler triumph hale thee back : 

Who worthier than thou to lead the way 

Unto the everlasting Truce of God, 

When brothers shall toward brothers over sea 

Stretch not the sword-blade, but the open palm, 

Till on Time's long but ever-upward slope 

They mount together to unreckoned heights, 

And grateful nations gladly follow them ! 
• ••••••• 

So sang I, proud to be but one of all 
The sands upon a shore whereon there breaks, 
Freighted with purpose vast, the will of Heaven — 
When a rude clash I heard, that yet I hear, 
As Discord grasped again her rusted harp 
And struck new terror from the raveled strings, 



1 84 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

Calling Ambition blindfold to the lead 
Of Want, Dishonor, Perfidy, and Crime, 
Who in their turn misguide the innocent, 
Groping their way by the last firebrands 
Plucked from their holocaust of hoarded truth. 
The air we fancied peaceful as the noon 
Was dark with sudden hatred, as with cloud 
Blown, in long-gathered tempest, from the West, 
Like a wild storm of summer heat and wind 
Circling in passion, bruited by dismay, 
And dragging death and chaos in its train, 
As some old myth of savagery come true, 
And Nature had turned demon, rending Man. 

This madness Webster still can medicine, 

Who was physician to its earlier taint. 

He did not fury then with fury meet, 

But to the sanity of eternal law 

Wooed back the wandering mind. Who could forget 

His calming presence when, ere he began, 

Confusion fled before his morning look 

Of power miraculously new and mild ; 

The speech as temperate as a wind of May ; 

The mind as candid as the noonday light ; 

The tones deliberate, confident, sedate, 

Waking no passion, and yet moving all 



THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 185 

With such a high compulsion that at length 
Reason, the king that well-nigh had been lost 
Upon the confines of his sovereign realm, 
Remounted to the throne with steady step, 
And men again were proud of his control. 

So, in these days of hopeful hearts' despair, 

When perils threat, ay, throng the ship of state, 

And less from gale without than torch within, 

Who — who but Webster with his faith serene 

Shall rouse the sleeping to command their fate, 

Shall bid them steer by the unswerving stars, 

And in them troth with Liberty renew? 

Imagination gave his spirit wings, 

That, seeing past the tempest and the flame, 

He might remind us of our destiny : 

To save from faction what was meant for Man ; 

To cherish brotherhood, simplicity, 

The chance for each that is the hope for all ; 

To guard the realm from Sloth, and Greed, and Waste — 

The sateless Gorgons of democracy ; 

And above all, whatever storm may rage, 

To cling to Law, the path of Liberty, 

The prop of heaven, the very pulse of God. 

Thus our new soil, the home of every seed, 

Where first the whole world meets on equal terms, 



1 86 THE VOICE OF WEBSTER 

Shall such new marvels show of man's estate 
In knowledge, wisdom, beauty, virtue, power, 
The Past shall fade in pity or in scorn, 
While fresher joys shall thrill the pulse of earth. 

No, Webster's fame not Webster's self can blot. 

Fair is perfection's image in the soul, 

And yearning for it holds the world to good. 

Yet is it such a jewel as may not 

Unto a single guardian be entrust, 

But to the courage of a multitude 

Who all together have what each may lack. 

Though men may falter, it is Virtue's strength 

To be indelible : our smallest good 

By our 'worst evil cannot be undone. 

The discords of that life— how short they fall, 

Like ill-strung arrows! But its harmonies — 

Harmonious speech large with harmonious thought- 

Dwell in a nation's peace, a nation's hope, 

Imperishable music ; not the rhythm 

Of some remembering moment, but the peal 

And crash of conflict unforgettable 

Piercing the mid and thick of night. No, no, 

That voice of thunder died not with the storm, 

But in the dull and coward times of peace 

Long shall its echoes rouse the patriot's heart. 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 



The War of Independence was virtually a second Eng- 
lish civil war. The ruin of the American cause would 
have been also the ruin of the constitutional cause in 
England; and a patriotic Englishman may revere the 
memory of Patrick Henry and George Washington not 
less justly than the patriotic American. 

—-John Morley, on Burke. 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 19 1 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 



England, thou breeder of heroes and of bards, 

Had ever nation manlier shield or song! 

For thee such rivalry have sword and pen, 

Fame, from her heaped green, crowns with equal hand 

The deathless deed and the immortal word. 

For which dost thou thy Sidney hold more dear, 

Defense of England or of Poesie? 

Cromwell or Milton — if man's guiding stars 

Could vanish as they came — which wouldst thou spare? 

Lost Kempenfelt indeed, were Cowper mute! 

To victory, not alone on shuddering seas 

Rode Nelson, but on Campbell's tossing rhyme. 

Hark to thy great Duke's greater dirge, and doubt 

For which was Waterloo the worthier won, 

To change the tyrant on a foreign throne, 

Or add a faultless ode to English song. 

Great deeds make poets : by whose nobler word, 

In turn, the blood of heroes is transfused 



1 92 HANDS ACROSS SEA 

Into the veins of sluggards, till they rise, 
Surprised, exalted to the height of men. 

Nor can Columbia choose between the two 

Which give more glory to thy Minster gloom. 

They are our brave, our deathless, our divine — 

Our Saxon grasp on their embattled swords, 

Our Saxon numbers in their lyric speech. 

We grudge no storied wreath, nay, would withhold 

Of bay or laurel not one envied leaf. 

Then, on thy proud cliff fronting Europe-ward, 

Strong in thyself, not by some weaker prop, 

Give to the greeting of a kindred voice 

A moment in the ebb of thy disdain. 



ii 



Is it but chance that in thy treasured verse 
There is no paean, no exulting line, 
No phrase of martial fervor, to record 
The Briton's prowess on our Western shore? 
There was no lapse of valiance in thy race — 
Or else had Time forgot to mark the years. 
Nor hast thou since had lack of many a voice 
Whose words, like wings to seed, on every air 
From land to hospitable land import 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 193 

Thy progeny of courage, justice, truth. 
Why, then, when all our songs were resonant, 
Were all thy singers silent? Candor, speak] 
There is a daemon makes the Muses dumb 
When they would praise the wrong : but Liberty 
From Nature has inheritance of speech— 
The forest harp, the flood's processional, 
The glorious antiphone of every shore. 
When these are dumb, then poets may be mute! 



in 

Taught by thy heroes, summoned by thy bards, 
Against the imperious folly of thy kings 
Twice our reluctant banners were arrayed. 
What matter if the victors were not thine, 
If thine the victories? Thou art more secure 
Saved from the canker of successful wrong. 
Thou dost not blush for Naseby, where, of old, 
England most conquered, conquering Englishmen. 
So when thou hear'st the trumpets in our verse 
In praise of our new land's deliverance, 
Hard won from Winter, Hunger, and from thee, 
And from those allies thou didst hire and scorn, 
Deem it not hatred, nor the vulgar pride 
Of the arena, nor the greed of fame. 

13 



194 HANDS ACROSS SEA 

('Twixt men or nations, there 's no victory 

Save when an angel overcomes in both.) 

Would all our strife were blameless! Some, alas! 

Hath trophies hoarded only to be hid, 

For courage cannot hallow wanton war. 

Be proud our hand against thee ne'er was raised 

But to wrench English justice from thy grasp. 

And, as to landsmen, far from windy shores, 

The breathing shell may bear the murmuring sea, 

Still in our patriot song reverberates 

The mighty voice that sang at Hampden's side. 

IV 

True, there are those of our impassioned blood 

Who can forget but slowly that thy great 

Misread the omens of our later strife, 

And knew not Freedom when she called to thee. 

These think they hate thee! — these, who have embraced 

Before the altar their fraternal foes! 

Not white of York and red of Lancaster 

More kindly mingle in thy rose of peace 

Than blend in cloudless dawn our blue and gray. 

Already Time and History contend 

For sinking rampart and the grassy ridge 

That with its challenge startles pilgrim feet 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 195 

Along the fringes of the wounded wood. 

The bedtime wonder of our children holds 

Vicksburg coeval with the siege of Troy, 

And the scorned slave so hastened to forgive 

The scar has lost remembrance of the lash. 

Since Love has drawn the sting of that distress, 

For one with wrath to compass sea and years 

Were but to make of injury a jest, 

Holding the occasion guiltier than the cause. 

But Hate 's a weed that withers in the sun ; 

A cell of which the prisoner holds the key, 

His will his jailer ; nay, a frowning tower 

Invincible by legions, but with still 

One secret weakness : who can hate may love. 

Oh, pausing in thy cordon of the globe, 

Let one full drop of English blood be spilled 

For Liberty, not England : men would lose 

Their fancied hatred in an ardor new, 

As Minas Channel turns to Fundy's tide. 

Hate thee? Hast thou forgot red Pei-ho's stream, 

The triple horror of the ambuscade, 

The hell of battle, the foredoomed assault, 

When thou didst stand the champion of the world, 

Though the awed sea for once deserted thee? 

Who then sprang to thee, breaking from the bonds 

Of old observance, with a human cry, 



I9 6 HANDS ACROSS SEA 

Thirsting to share thy glorious defeat 

As men are wont to covet victory? 

Hate thee? Hast thou forgot Samoa's reef, 

The day more dark than any starless night, 

The black storm buffeting the hopeless ships, 

The struggle of thy sons, and, as they won, 

Gaining the refuge of the furious deep, 

The immortal cheers that shook the Trentorts deck. 

As Death might plead with Nature for the brave? 

Stands there no monument upon that strand? 

Then let remembrance build a beacon high, 

That long its warning message may remind 

How common danger stirs the brother heart. 



Why turn the leaf back to an earlier page ? 

To-day, not moved by memory or fear, 

But by the vision of a nobler time, 

Millions cry toward thee in a passion of peace. 

We need thee, England, not in armed array 

To stand beside us in the empty quarrels 

That kings pursue, ere War itself expire 

Like an o'er-armored knight in desperate lunge 

Beneath the weight of helmet and of lance ; 

But now, in conflict with an inner foe 

Who shall in conquering either conquer both. 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 197 

For it is written in the book of fate : 

By no sword save her own falls Liberty. 

A wondrous century trembles at its dawn, 

Conflicting currents telling its approach ; 

And while men take new reckonings from the peaks, 

Re weigh the jewel and retaste the wine, 

Be ours to guard against the impious hands 

That, like rash children, tamper with that blade. 

Thou, too, hast seen the vision : shall it be 

Only a dream, caught in the web of night, 

Lost through the coarser meshes of the day? 

Or like the beauty of the prismic bow, 

Which the sun's ardor, that creates, consumes? 

Oh, may it be the thing we image it! — 

The beckoning spirit of our common race 

Floating before us in a fringe of light 

With Duty's brow, Love's eyes, the smile of Peace ; 

Benignant figure of compelling mien, 

Star-crowned, star-girdled, and o'erstrewn with stars, 

As though a constellation should descend 

To be fit courier to a glorious age. 

VI 

O thou that keepest record of the brave, 
Something of us to thee is lost, more worth 
Than all the fabled wealth of sibyls' leaves. 



f9 8 HANDS ACROSS SEA 

Not with dull figures, but with heroes' deeds, 
Fill up those empty annals. Teach thy youth 
To know not North's but Byron's Washington ; 
To follow Hale's proud step as tearfully 
As we pale Andre's. And when next thy sons 
Stand in Manhattan gazing at the swirl 
Of eddying trade from Trinity's brown porch, 
Astonished, with the praise that half defames, 
At the material greatness of the scene, — 
The roar, the fret, the Babel-towers of trade,— 
Let one stretch forth a hand and touch the stone 
That covers Lawrence, saying, " To this height 
Our English blood has risen." And to know 
The sea still speaks of courage, let them learn 
What murmurs it of Craven in one bay, 
And what of Cushing shouts another shore. 
(Find but one star, how soon the sky is full! 
One hero summons hundreds to the field : 
So to the memory.) Let them muse on Shaw, 
Whose bones the deep did so begrudge the land 
It sent its boldest waves to bring them back 
Unto the blue domed Pantheon where they lie, 
The while his soul still leads in martial bronze ; 
Tell them of sweet-dirged Winthrop, whom to name 
Is to be braver, as one grows more pure 
Breathing the thought of lover or of saint ; 



HANDS ACROSS SEA 



99 



Grim Jackson, Covenanter of the South, 

And her well-christened Sidney, fallen soon ; 

Kearny and Lyon. Of such hearts as these 

Who would not boast were braggart of all else. 

Each fought for Right — and conquered with the Best, 

Such graves are all the ruins that w T e have — 

Our broken arch and battlement — to tell 

That ours, like thine, have come of Arthur's race. 

O England, wakened from thy lull of song, 
Thy scepter, sword, and spindle, fasces-like, 
Bound with fresh laurel as thy sign of strength, 
When shalt thou win us with a theme of ours, 
Reclaiming thus thine own, till men shall say : 
" That was the noblest conquest of her rule " ? 

New York, 1897. 




Ill 

ITALIAN RHAPSODY 

AND OTHER POEMS 



TO WILLIAM FAYAL CLARKE 



POEMS OF ITALY 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY 



207 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY* 



Dear Italy! The sound of thy soft name 

Soothes me with balm of Memory and Hope. 
Mine, for the moment, height and sweep and slope 
That once were mine. Supreme is still the aim 
To flee the cold and gray 
Of our December day, 
And rest where thy clear spirit burns with unconsuming 
flame. 

11 

There are who deem remembered beauty best, 

And thine, imagined, fairer is than sight 
Of all the charms of other realms confessed, 
Thou miracle of sea and land and light. 
Was it lest, envying thee, 
The world unhappy be, 
Benignant Heaven gave to all the all-consoling Night? 

* Read before the Mother Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Fra- 
ternity, William and Mary College, February 10, 1902. 



208 ITALIAN RHAPSCDY 

III 

Remembered beauty best? Who reason so? 

Not lovers, yearning to the same dumb star 
That doth disdain their passion — who, afar, 
Seek touch and voice in velvet winds and low. 
No, storied Italy, 
Not thine that heresy, 
Thou who thyself art fairer far than Fancy e'er can 
show. 

IV 

To me thou art an ever-brooding spell ; 

An old enchantment, exorcised of wrong ; 
A beacon, whereagainst the wings of Song 
Are bruised so, they cannot fly to tell ; 
A mistress, at whose feet 
A myriad singers meet, 
To find thy beauty the despair of measures full and 
sweet. 



Of old, ere caste or custom froze the heart, 

What tales of thine did Chaucer re-indite,— 
Of Constance, and Griselda, and the plight 

Of pure Cecilia, — all with joyous art! 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY 209 

Oh, to have journeyed down 
To Canterbury town, 
And known, from lips that touched thy robe, that triad 
of renown ! 



VI 

Fount of Romance whereat our Shakspere drank! 
Through him the loves of all are linked to thee 
By Romeo's ardor, Juliet's constancy. 
He sets the peasant in the royal rank ; 

Shows under mask and paint 
Kinship of knave and saint, 
And plays on stolid man with Prosperous wand and 
Ariel's prank. 



VII 

Another English foster-child hadst thou 

When Milton from the breast of thy delight 
Drew inspiration. With a vestal's vow 

He fed the flame caught from thy sacred light. 
And when upon him lay 
The long eclipse of day, 
Thou wert the memory-hoarded treasure of his doomed 
sight. 

14 



210 ITALIAN RHAPSODY 

VIII 

Name me a poet who has trod thy soil ; 

He is thy lover, ever hastening back, 
With thee forgetting weariness and toil, 
The nightly sorrow for the daily lack. 
How oft our lyric race 
Looked last upon thy face! 
Oh, would that I were worthy thus to die in thine 
embrace ! 

IX 

Oh, to be kin to Keats as urn with urn 

Shares the same Roman earth! — to sleep, apart, 
Near to the bloom that once was Shelley's heart, 
Where bees, like lingering lovers, re-return ; 
Where the proud pyramid, 
To brighter glory bid, 
Gives Cestius his longed-for fame, marking immortal 
Art. 



Or, in loved Florence, to repose beside 

Our trinity of singers! Fame enough 
To neighbor lordly Landor, noble Clough, 

And her, our later sibyl, sorrow-eyed. 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY 211 

Oh, tell me — not their arts, 
But their Italian hearts 
Won for their dust that narrow oval, than the world 
more wide! 



XI 

So might I lie where Browning should have lain, 

My " Italy " for all the world to read, 
Like his on the palazzo. For thy pain 
In losing from thy rosary that bead, 
England accords thee room 
Around his minster tomb — 
A province conquered of thy soul, and not an Arab 
slain ! 



XII 

Then take these lines, and add to them the lay, 

All inarticulate, I to thee indite : 
The sudden longing on the sunniest day, 

The happy sighing in the stormiest night, 
The tears of love that creep 
From eyes unwont to weep, 
Full with remembrance, blind with joy, and with devotion 
deep. 



212 ITALIAN RHAPSODY 

XIII 

Absence from thee is such as men endure 

Between the glad betrothal and the bride ; 
Or like the years that Youth, intense and sure, 
From his ambition to his goal must bide. 
And if no more I may- 
Mount to Fiesole . . . 
Oh, then were Memory meant for those to whom is Hope 
denied. 

XIV 

Show me a lover who hath drunk by night 
Thy beauty-potion, as the grape the dew : 
7 T were little wonder he were poet too, 
With wine of song in unexpected might, 
While moonlit cloister calls 
With plashy fountain-falls, 
Or darkened Arno moves to music with its mirrored 
light. 

xv 

Who can withstand thee? What distress or care 
But yields to Naples, or that long day-dream 

We know as Venice, where alone more fair 

Noon is than night ; where every lapping stream 



ITALIAN RHAPSODY 



213 



Wooes with a soft caress 
Our new-world weariness, 
And every ripple smiles with joy at sight of scene so 
rare. 



XVI 

The mystery of thy charm — ah, who hath guessed? 
'T was ne'er divined by day or shown in sleep ; 
Yet sometimes Music, floating from her steep, 
Holds to our lips a chalice brimmed and blest : 
Then know we that thou art 
Of the Ideal part — 
Of Man's one thirst that is not quenched, drink he 
howe'er so deep. 



XVII 

Thou human-hearted land, whose revels hold 
Man in communion with the antique days, 
And summon him from prosy greed to ways 
Where Youth is beckoning to the Age of Gold ; 
How thou dost hold him near 
And whisper in his ear 
Of the lost Paradise that lies beyond the alluring haze ! 



2i4 ITALIAN RHAPSODY 



XVIII 

In tears I tossed my coin from Trevi's edge,— 
A coin unsordid as a bond of love, — 
And, with the instinct of the homing dove, 
I gave to Rome my rendezvous and pledge. 
And when imperious Death 
Has quenched my flame of breath, 
Oh, let me join the faithful shades that throng that 
fount above. 



THE HOUR OF AWE 



215 



THE HOUR OF AWE 

Not in the five-domed wonder 
Where the soul of Venice lies, 

When the sun cleaves the gloom asunder 
With pathways to Paradise, 

And the organ's melodious thunder 
Summons you to the skies ; 

Not in that rarest hour, 

When over the Arno's rush 
The City of Flowers' flower 

Looms in the sunset flush, 
And the poignant stroke from the tower 

Pierces the spirit's hush ; 

Not Rome's high vault's devising 

That builded the heavens in, 
When you know not the anthem's rising 

From the song of the cherubin, 
Where, sight and soul surprising, 

Dusk utters your dearest sin : 



216 THE HOUR OF AWE 

Not these — nor the star-sown splendor, 
Nor the deep wood's mystery, 

Nor the sullen storm's surrender 
To the ranks of the leaping sea, 

Nor the joy of the springtime tender 
On Nature's breast to be ; 

But to find in a woman's weeping 
The' look you have longed to find, 

And know that in Time's safe-keeping, 
Through all the ages blind, 

Was Love, like a winged seed, sleeping 
For you and the waiting wind. 



TITIAN'S TWO LOVES, IN THE BORGHESE 217 



TITIAN'S TWO LOVES, IN THE BORGHESE 

One forgets not the first dead he sorrowed over ; 
One forgets not the first kiss of the first lover. 
Not the dust of ages could remembrance cover 
How in Titian's golden kingdom first I strayed. 

Oh, that Roman morning's azure, softly sifting 
Through the gray, the while the rapt eye caught the 

rifting 
Of the sun's rich fire where molten mists were drifting, 
As one looks upon an opal gently swayed. 

Ah! but in the palace there was sun more golden! 
Art for once to Nature was no more beholden. 
Man to his beloved had the passion olden 

Sung in color, and his mighty Love grew Fame. 

For I guessed, while hotly others were contending 
Which was Love Divine, that each to each was lending 
Supplemental graces for a perfect blending — 
That to paint one twofold woman was his aim. 



218 TITIAN'S TWO LOVES, IN THE BORGHESE 

One without the other's beauty were but torso : 
Human needs divine, ah, yes, and — maybe more so — 
By divine is needed. (Singing down the Corso 
I, elate, enthralled, went, happy just to be!) 

Yet till thee at last I knew-— each blended feature 
Where the two Loves meet in rightly balanced nature— 
Never had I known a tithe of Titian's creature : 
God, the master limner, painted both in thee. 



POEMS ON PUBLIC EVENTS 



THE LISTENING SWORD 2 2i 



THE LISTENING SWORD 

(WRITTEN ON THE EVE OF THE SPANISH WAR) 

Still on the hilt, O Patience, keep thy hand ! 

Though in the sheath the uneasy sword may leap 

That waits, and, for its waiting, cannot sleep. 
For it doth envy Arthur's knightly brand 
And each fame-wreathed weapon, hero-manned, 

That the world's freemen in remembrance keep. 

Oh, how can steel be deaf when nations weep 
With the loud sobbing of the desolate strand! 

Are there who think, " The hilt hears, not the blade, 
Snug in its silence "? Ah, from storms upcaught 
Fall not too soon the lightnings of the Lord. 
Justice, thou God in Man, when thou hast weighed 
All in thy balance, show us what we ought. 

Then, Patience, not till then, loose the appointed 
sword. 

March 30, 1898. 



222 DEWEY AT MANILA 



DEWEY AT MANILA 



'T was the very verge of May 
When the bold Olymfiia led 

Into Boca Grande gray 

Dewey's squadron, dark and dread 

Creeping past Corregidor, 

Guardian of Manila's shore. 

Do they sleep who wait the fray? 

Is the moon so dazzling bright 
That our cruisers' battle-gray 

Melts into the misty light? . . . 
Ah! the rockets flash and soar! 
Wakes at last Corregidor! 

All too late their screaming shell 
Tears the silence with its track. 

This is but the gate of Hell ; 
We 've no leisure to turn back. 

Answer, Boston — then once more 

Slumber on, Corregidor! 



DEWEY AT MANILA 

And as, like a slowing tide, 
Onward still the vessels creep, 

Dewey, watching, falcon-eyed, 
Orders : " Let the gunners sleep ; 

For we meet a foe at four 

Fiercer than Corregidor." 

Well they slept, for well they knew 
What the morrow taught us all — 

He was wise (as well as true) 
Thus upon the foe to fall. 

Long shall Spain the day deplore 

Dewey ran Corregidor. 



ii 



May is dancing into light 

As the Spanish Admiral, 
From a dream of phantom fight, 

Wakens at his sentry's call. 
Shall he leave Cavite's lee, 
Hunt the Yankee fleet at sea? 

O Montojo, to thy deck, 

That to-day shall float its last! 

Quick! To quarters! Yonder speck 
Grows a hull of portent vast. 



223 



224 DEWEY AT MANILA 

Hither, toward Cavite's lee 
Comes the Yankee hunting thee! 

Not for fear of hidden mine 

Halts our doughty Commodore. 
Ie, of old heroic line, 
Follows Farragut once more, 
Hazards all on victory, 
Here within Cavite's lee. 

If he loses, all is gone ; 

He will win because he must. 
And the shafts of yonder dawn 

Are not quicker than his thrust. 
Soon, Montojo, he shall be 
With thee in Cavite's lee. 

Now, Manila, to the fray! 

Show the hated Yankee host 
This is not a holiday — 

Spanish blood is more than boast. 
Fleet and mine and battery, 
Crush him in Cavite's lee! 

Lo, Hell's geysers at our fore 

Pierce the plotted path— in vain, 

Nerving every man the more 
With the memory of the Maine! 



DEWEY AT MANILA 

Now at last our guns are free 
Here within Cavite's lee. 

" Gridley," says the Commodore, 
" You may fire when ready." Then 

Long and loud, like lions' roar 
When a rival dares the den, 

Breaks the awful cannonry 

Full across Cavite's lee. 

Who shall tell the thrilling tale 
Of Our Thunderbolt's attack, 

Finding, when the chart should fail, 
By the lead his dubious track, 

Five ships following faithfully 

Five times o'er Cavite's lee ; 

Of our gunners' deadly aim ; 

Of the gallant foe and brave 
Who, unconquered, faced with flame, 

Seek the mercy of the wave — 
Choosing honor in the sea 
Underneath Cavite's lee! 

Let the meed the victors gain 
Be the measure of their task. 

Less of flinching, stouter strain, 
Fiercer combat— who could ask ? 

15 



225 



226 DEWEY AT MANILA 

And " surrender " — 't was a word 
That Cavite ne'er had heard. 

Noon— the woeful work is done! 

Not a Spanish ship remains ; 
But, of their eleven, none 

Ever was so truly Spain's! 
Which is prouder, they or we, 
Thinking of Cavite's lee? 

Envoy 

But remember, when we Ve ceased 
Giving praise and reckoning odds, 

Man shares courage with the beast, 
Wisdom cometh from the gods. 

Who would win, on land or wave, 

Must be wise as well as brave. 

May 10, 1898. 



THE WELCOME OF OUR TEARS 



227 



THE WELCOME OF OUR TEARS 

(ON THE RETURN OF A REGIMENT FROM THE SPANISH WAR) 

Now is the time to be glad ! 

Now is the time to be gay! 
With welcome the city is mad, 

And the flags and the wind are at play. 
There, down the street full of faces 

(Like a furrow that Joy has plowed), 
The heart and the eye run races 

Which first shall greet the proud. 

Nearer and nearer they come! 

I can tell by the cheer and the shout 
That keep just ahead of the drum 

Where the little flags break out. 
I can tell by the blood's quick leaping 

My sluggish veins along, 
I can tell by my footstep keeping 

The rhythm of battle-song. 

Against them the sword of the Cid 
In the hand of a haughty foe ; 

Against them the jungle that hid 
Iron-fanged serpents a-row ; 



228 THE WELCOME OF OUR TEARS 

Against them the storm and the baking 
Of sun on the rain-drenched skin ; 

Against them the fever's aching, 
Against them our civic sin. 

Here they are ! father and lad. 

Now let us cheer them — but stay! 
Too haggard that face to be glad, 

Too weary those feet to be gay. 
God ! are these phantoms the handsome 

Young knights that went, eager to save? 
O Freedom, is this then the ransom 

We give for the starved and the slave? 

They whom we welcome to-day — 

Why do the shout and the cheer 
Lining each step of their way 

Seem like a dirge and a tear? 
Is it that some may be wearing 

Laurels of others? Ay, see! 
Count the thin ranks of the daring : 

Each wears his laurels for three! 

And we thought it a time to be glad! 
And we thought it a time to be gay! 

New York, September 22, 1898. 



AN ENGLISH MOTHER 229 



AN ENGLISH MOTHER 

Every week of every season out of English ports go 

forth, 
White of sail or white of trail, East, or West, or South, 

or North, 
Scattering like a flight of pigeons, half a hundred home- 
sick ships, 
Bearing half a thousand striplings — each with kisses on 

his lips 
Of some silent mother, fearful lest she show herself too 

fond, 
Giving him to bush or desert as one pays a sacred bond. 
— Tell us, you who hide your heartbreak, Which is 

sadder, when all 's done, 
To repine, an English mother, or to roam, an English 

son? 

You who shared your babe's first sorrow when his cheek 
no longer pressed 

On the perfect, snow-and-roseleaf beauty of your mother- 
breast, 



230 



AN ENGLISH MOTHER 



In the rigor of his nurture was your woman's mercy mute, 
Knowing he was doomed to exile with the savage and 

the brute? 
Did you school yourself to absence, all his adolescent 

years, 
That, though you be torn with parting, he should never 

see the tears? 
Now his ship has left the offing for the many-mouthed 

sea, 
This your guerdon, empty heart, by empty bed to bend 

the knee! 



And if he be but the latest thus to leave your dwindling 
board, 

Is a sorrow less for being added to a sorrow's hoard? 

Is the mother-pain the duller that to-day his brothers 
stand, 

Facing ambuscades of Congo or alarms of Zululand? 

Toil, where blizzards drift the snow like smoke across 
the plains of death? 

Faint, where tropic fens at morning steam with fever- 
laden breath? 

Die, that in some distant river's veins the English blood 
may run — 

Mississippi, Yangtze, Ganges, Nile, Mackenzie, Amazon? 



AN ENGLISH MOTHER 231 

Ah! you still must wait and suffer in a solitude untold 
While your sisters of the nations call you passive, call 

you cold — 
Still must scan the news of sailings, breathless search 

the slow gazette, 
Find the dreaded name . . . and, later, get his blithe 

farewell! And yet— 
Shall the lonely at the hearthstone shame the legions 

who have died 
Grudging not the price their country pays for progress 

and for pride? 
— Nay; but, England, do not ask us thus to emulate 

your scars 
Until women's tears are reckoned in the budgets of your 

wars. 

1899. 



232 " THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN" 



"THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 

What is the White Man's burden? 

Does destiny demand 
His back be laden higher 

By every dusky hand? 
Am I my brother's keeper — 

Or keeper of his land? 

What is the White Man's burden? 

Is it the mounting flood 
Of treasure, vain to vanquish 

The tides of patriot blood, 
While our supremest jewel 

Is trampled in the mud? 

What is the White Man's burden 
That weighs upon his sleep? 

To hear the hundreds dying? 
To see the thousands weep? 

Oh, wanton war that haunts him! 
Oh, seed that he must reap! 



" THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN " 

What is the White Man's burden— 

The burden of his song 
That once was " Peace and Justice ; 

The Weak beside the Strong "? 
He falters in the singing 

At memory of the wrong. 

What though our vaunt of Freedom 
Must evermore be mute, 

And the trading of men's vices 
Drag both below the brute? 

Go bribe new ships to bring it — 
The White Man's burden— loot! 



233 



234 



ON READING OF ATROCITIES IN WAR 



ON READING OF ATROCITIES IN WAR 

Mild is the air of April, 

Gentle the sky above, 
And the budding and the mating 

Call for a song of love ; 
But the season on my singing 

Has lost its olden spell 
Because of a shame and sorrow 

Men close their eyes to tell. 

I see but the tears of women 

In the rain of the springtime flood ; 
I cannot brook the flowers — 

They only smell of blood. 
Sad is the playground frolic— 

Its joy and laughter melt 
In the moan of children sobbing 

From jungle and from veldt. 

O ye in the halls of council, 

You may conquer the distant foe, 

But still before a higher court 
Your needless wars must go. 



ON READIXG OF ATROCITIES IN WAR 235 

Too much you ask of silence ; 

Too fierce the iron heel. 
Because one statesman blundered 

Must every heart be steel? 

O Britain! O Columbia! 

Too much of sodden strife. 
Back to the banished gospel — 

The sacredness of life! 
Else shall our ties of language 

And law and race and fame 
Be naught to the bond that binds us 

In one eternal shame. 

April 8, 1902. 



236 THE KEEPER OF THE SWORD 



THE KEEPER OF THE SWORD* 

(APROPOS OF THE DREYFUS TRIAL AT RENNES) 

Hail to that Breton law by which a lord, 

Fate-hounded, — he whose sires had sought the Grail, — 
Left with the State his sword, as Honor's bail, 
While on a western isle he won reward 

Of his brave patience, in a golden hoard ; — 
Speeding from exile (the wide sea a jail 
If but the wrong wind filled his yearning sail! ) 
To claim once more his heritage and sword. 

France, dost thou heed the omen? 'T was at Rennes ! — 
Where one who loved thee, cruel, — loved thee, blind, — 
Now fronts thee proudly with the old demand. 

Oh! . . . thou hast broke it! ... Haste! the 
fragments find, 
And in the forge of Justice weld again 
That undishonored blade for his forgiving hand. 

August 7, 1899. 

* Readers of the "Sentimental Journey" will recall Sterne's 
account of the custom here referred to, as narrated in the chapter 
entitled "The Sword: Rennes." 



REMEMBER WARING! 237 



REMEMBER WARING! 

(THE CITY AGAINST TAMMANY, 1901) 

Again the bugle-blow 
To meet the common foe 

Summons the daring. 
Can ye not hear the call 
Echo from every wall— 

" Remember Waring " ? 

He stormed the fetid street 
Where Death with rapid feet 

Strode fierce and glaring. 
Shall we forget, alone, 
When every grateful stone 

Remembers Waring? 

He, to your service true ; 
He, in his love of you 

Himself not sparing ; 
Whom gold could not allure ; 
Guardian of rich and poor— 

Our soldier Waring! 



238 REMEMBER WARING! 

He found a wretched throng — 
Rescued from ancient wrong- 
New burdens bearing ; 
And babes that he did save 
Cry from a later grave : 
" Remember Waring." 

He dared a tropic hell 
Of fever— till he fell, 

And we, despairing, 
Knew that for us he died, 
And in our grieving cried : 

" Remember Waring! " 

Shall we be less than they 
Who make the poor their prey, 

No least one sparing? 
They praise him, though they fill 
Each tainted purse ; they still 

Remember Waring. 

How shall our deed atone 
That nowhere bronze or stone 

His name is bearing? 
His ashes in their urn 
With his old ardor burn, 

And plead, for Waring : 



REMEMBER WARING! 

u Oh, if the work I wrought 
Be to your memory aught, 

Now Greed is tearing 
The crown from Freedom's brow, 
Strike harder that you now 

Remember Waring." 

Then, ere the heart grow cold, 
Let us on altars old 

New vows be swearing : 
" Perish the people's foe! 
Scorn for his tool ! " and so 

Remember Waring. 



2 39 



POEMS OF HEART AND SOUL 



TO ONE BORN ON THE LAST OF NOVEMBER 243 



TO ONE BORN ON THE LAST DAY OF 
NOVEMBER 

Upon this day, divinely blest, 

When thou wert born, as to their guest, 

Three seasons gave thee of their best. 

March brought the graceful stir of Spring ; 

April, a tender song to sing ; 

May, the most winsome blossoming ; 

June gave sweet breath, and that pale flush 
July has deepened in thy blush. 
Repose came with the August hush. 

September blent thy glowing hair 
With glowing temple, as the air 
Of twilight blendeth dark and fair. 

October's dower was so rife 
With treasure, futile further strife, 
And so November gave thee— life. 



244 



TO ONE BORN ON THE LAST OF NOVEMBER 

So keen and icy was the smart 
Of Winter (since he had no part 
In fashioning thy radiant heart), 

He bade December so to plead 
For thee, petitioning his need, 
That the relenting Fates took heed ; 

And though November's thou must be, 
Yet nearest Winter (they decree) 
Is set thy gracious ministry. 



MUSIC AND LOVE 2 ^ 



MUSIC AND LOVE 

Who longs for music merely longs for Love. 
For Love is music, and no minstrel needs 
Save his own sigh to breathe upon the reeds 
From heart too full, and— like the adoring dove 

That cooes all day the darling nest above, 
Content if hour to happy hour succeeds — 
Nor morning's song, nor noon's rich silence, heeds, 
Nor the old mysteries evening whispers of. 

But when the voice is echoless, the hand 

Long empty, then, O wedded harp and flute, 
Remind us Love 's eternal, not Time's tov. 

O viol, at whose brink of pain we stand, 
Love in thy muted anguish is not mute, 
But thrills with memory's new-remembered joy. 



246 



AT A CONCERT 



AT A CONCERT 

Music inspires me but to think of thee, 

For thou art of the music of the world — 

A strain of that imperishable voice 

That speaks in beauty, harmony, and love. 

When Mozart wakes the gladness of my youth 

I see perpetual childhood in thy face. 

When Chopin, hand in hand with Love, leads on 

Through meadowy pleasures to the brink of pain, 

How near, how tender is thy beating heart! 

And oh, when from the skies Beethoven sounds 

His sure, triumphant song, how it vibrates 

Deep memories of thy reposeful soul! 



AFTER THE SONG 

AFTER THE SONG 

(to e. J. w.) 

If to your wondrous voice and art 
I give not plaudits with the throng, 

'T is lest I spill my brimming heart 
And in the singer lose the song. 

Too soon the sweetest cadence dies ; 

The vanished vision leaves but this : 
The burden of the things we prize, 

The pathos of the things we miss. 

Oh, for a silence that should hold 
These echoes of delicious sound 

As depths of a still lake enfold 

Brooks that fall fainter bound by bound, 

Yours is the art of Orphic power 

To charm the soul from out its hell — 

Deserts of absence to reflower 
With rose instead of asphodel. 

Like dew on gossamer, a tear 
Lies on the fabric of our dream : 

Despairing hope ! that we who hear 
Might be as noble as you seem. 



247 



248 SONG FOR YOUTH 



SONG FOR YOUTH 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Delay, delay! 
Old Time shall soon, forsooth, 
December make of May. 

Bid him away! 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Oh, stay ; oh, stay ! 
Nor covet Age uncouth, 
When all is warm and gay 
For you to-day. 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Delay, delay! 
Let others seek for Truth ; 
Yours is the time for play 

And dance of fay. 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Oh, stay; oh, stay! 
Time with remorseless tooth 
Shall gnaw your bloom away ; 
Then say him nay. 



SONG FOR YOUTH 

O flower-like years of youth, 

Delay, delay! 
Age knows for you no ruth ; 
Then, till your latest day, 

Hold him at bay. 



249 



250 



SONG OF REMEMBRANCE 



SONG OF REMEMBRANCE 

Bird of the swaying bough 
{Like the voice of a lover's vow), 
You shall hold for me ever } as now, 
The thrill of your morning song. 

Bubble of April light 
{Like the glance of a lover's sight), 
You shall into my winter night 
The soul of the noon prolong. 

Cloud of the wind-swept land 
{Like the touch of a lover's hand), 
In the memory you shall stand 

Though you flee from the flaming sky. 

Rose of the scattered bower 
{Like Love's most fragrant hour), 
When shall you lose your power? 
When I no more am I. 



STAR- SONG 



251 



STAR-SONG 

When sunset flows into golden glows, 
And the breath of the night is new, 

Love, find afar yon yearning star- 
That is my thought of you. 

And when your eye doth scan the sky 

Your lonely lattice through, 
Choose any one, from sun to sun— 

That is my thought of you. 

And when you wake at the morning's break 

To rival rose and dew, 
The star that stays in the leaping rays— 

That is my thought of you. 



2R2 



SONG FOR A WEDniNG-DAY 



SONG FOR A WEDDING-DAY 

Poplar, straight and fair and tall : 
Graceful though your sway, 

Well for your soft rise and fall 
That Helen is away. 

Bud, about whose fragrant side 

All the pleasures play : 
Rose, remember in your pride 

That Helen is away. 

Heart, whose hope she never knew 
Though other hearts be gay, 

None need ever tell to you 
That Helen is away. 



WITH A TOAST TO THE BRIDE 253 



WITH A TOAST TO THE BRIDE 

They met, they looked, they sighed, they loved ; 

Straight each the other chose. 
(Why wait till slow-paced years have proved 

What each by instinct knows?) 
Whate'er mistake we mortals make, 

Sure, none is made above. 
Give prudence to the prudes ; there is 

No substitute for love. 

Howe'er the worldly-wise may mate, 

Apart from soul or sense, 
And as undying passion rate 

Their tepid preference, 
Love is the wing that 's sure to bring 

Back to the ark the dove. 
What all their wisdom? Ah, it is 

No substitute for love. 

And those who by ambition blind 

Would with a title wed, 
That, when they are not sore maligned, 

They may be envied, 



254 WITH A TOAST TO THE BRIDE 

Heaven sends them pride wherewith to hide 

The loss they know not of— 
To find — too late, alas! — there is 

No substitute for love. 

Then here 's success to youth and maid 

Who hold in hopeful hands 
And weave together, unafraid, 

Life's old mysterious strands. 
" Love is enough"— that is the stuff 

Fortune is fashioned of. 
To face the fickle world, there 's naught 

To substitute for love. 



TO JUNE 



255 



TO JUNE 

Month of the perfect love, 

Month of the perfect leaf, — 
The mellow-mourning dove 
Thine only note of grief,— 
Oh, let me hide within thy shade a sorrow past relief! 

Thou, unto whose employ 

All Nature's arts belong— 
Fragrance and warmth and joy : 
Admit me to thy throng. 
Thou canst not dull the pang, but oh! tune every chord 
to song! 



256 A LOVER'S ANSWER 



A LOVER'S ANSWER 

Thou seekest, " Where is heaven ?" Oh, Love, 't is 
where 

Thou shalt be, though thou be in hell. 

"And what is hell? " Oh, darling, 't were to dwell 
In highest heaven and thou not there. 



THE GUEST 



257 



THE GUEST 

I have a guest, but cannot tell 

If he were bid or sent, 
Yet welcome, as by desert well 

The Arab to the tent. 
How long will he consent to stay 
To give a reason for the day? 

And if he go, can I unlearn 

His songs of joy and pain? 
His torch, that was so quick to burn, 

How can I quench again — 
That torch that lights with fadeless flame 
One face, one memory, one name! 



17 



258 TO ONE WHO COMPLAINED 



TO ONE WHO COMPLAINED OF A 
LOVER'S PERSISTENCE 

You hear but the moans that break 
On the rocks at your feet— but hark! 
Perchance through the dreary dark 

A cry from a drifting wreck! 



INTER PRE TERS 2 g g 



INTERPRETERS 

One conned my simple lines with cynic art, 

Then smiled, as though he found a friend in me. 

And read : " If Love alone possess your heart, 
Then can you never more unhappy be." 

Another, feeling still Love's bitter dart. 

Smiled through her joyful tears triumphantly, 
And read : " If Love alone possess your heart, 

Then can you nevermore unhappy be." 



2 6o THE TRYST 



THE TRYST 

The panting north wind staggers 

A-clutch with the sullen tide, 
And the blast with a hundred daggers 

Is piercing the rower's side. 
They say he was mad to venture, 

They moan on the icy shore ; 
But pleading, or fear, or censure 

Shall carry him back no more. 

For what is the cold wave's seething, 

Or the rush of the white-speared storm, 
To the thought of the sweet South, breathing 

From lips that are pure and warm ; 
Or the thrust of the angry billow 

To the rise of her tranquil breast 
That to-night shall be his pillow 

Where, welcome, he may rest? 



LOVE THE CONQUEROR CAME TO ME" 26 1 



"LOVE THE CONQUEROR CAME TO ME" 



Love the Conqueror came to me. 
He whom I did long deride,— 
Gave humility for pride, 
April voicing 
My rejoicing. 
I — who fancied I was free— 
Glad to be with garlands tied! 



11 



Love the Awakener came to me ; 
Called my sleeping soul to strife, 
Offered gift of fuller life 
(Wish, the measure 
Of my pleasure) ; 
And the bud that knew no bee 
Burst, a rose with beauty rife. 



262 "LOVE THE CONQUEROR CAME TO ME" 

III 

Love the Tester came to me ; 
For the paean gave the dirge, 
For caresses gave the scourge 
(Ay, though Fortune 
Did importune), 
Till my breathing seemed to be 
Sorrow's tide at ebb and surge. 

IV 

Love the Ennobler came to me, 
With the cross as his device, 
Saying, " Shrink not from the price 
(Pain the burden, 
Peace the guerdon) ; 
Sorrow bravely borne shall be 
Doubly sweet as sacrifice." 

v 

Love the Revealer comes to me 
On this battled height, and shows 
Yonder river of repose : 
" Not by creeping, 
But by leaping, 
Learns the rill the harmony 
That within the river flows." 



THE STRONGER SUMMONS 2 6 3 



THE STRONGER SUMMONS* 

i 

How May doth call us with her sweetest voice, 
Fragrant with blossoms on this moonlit night! 

" Take of my wine, and in new birth rejoice ; 
Leave care and toil, the sordid city's plight. 

Oh, dying Man, come to the source of Life, 

And hush in Nature all the sounds of strife. ,, 

ii 

Wondrous the vision, and we fain would go 
But that a nobler pleasure calls us here. 

Charm, Nature, as thou wilt, thou canst not throw 
A spell to win us like the smile and tear. 

In what Love, Friendship, Duty, Service can, 

We know God's greatest miracle is Man. 

* Written in honor of the distinguished physician Dr. Abraham 
Jacobi, and read at the banquet given to him in New York city, 
May 5, 1900, to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of his birth, 
and included with the Festschrift then presented to him by mem- 
bers of the medical profession. 



264 THE FLOWER OF FAME 



THE FLOWER OF FAME 

He sought it before the billow of spring on the meadow 

was seen, 
When only the flush of the willow was tracing the river 

with green ; 
He scanned to the edge of the fraying snows that 

dappled the mountain-slope, 
And ever too late the March sun rose : for he searched 

the world with hope. 

I saw him at noon of the summer day, and that was the 

favorite hour 
To one who had hunted from March to May, and never 

had found the flower ; 
For the light was full, as though the sun were aiding 

his eager quest, 
And there were no warning shadows to run o'er his 

path from east or west. 

And still in September's purple and gold he was hunting 

the grudging ground, 
But not with the steady eye of old or the springtime's 

joyous bound ; 



THE FLOWER OF FAME 265 

If he stopped in his feverish roaming, 't was to question 

the darkling air; 
Too early came the gloaming: he was searching with 

despair. 

And while, for a chance of the rarest, he wanders in 

storm or heat, 
He is blind to the charm of the fairest ; he is crushing 

beneath his feet 
The Flower of Every Valley, the Flower of All the Year, 
Deep in whose broken blossom the dew lies like a tear. 



266 THE DREAD BEFORE GREAT JOY 



THE DREAD BEFORE GREAT JOY 



Within, what gracious store 
Of pleasures throng : 

Rest, beauty, firelit lore, 
Love-breathing song. 

Why at the open door 
Wait you so long? 



ii 



Oh, why delay to touch 
The splendid flower? 

Why tremble ere v/e clutch 
The perfect hour? 

Is it too near, too much, 
The certain dower? 



THE DREAD BEFORE GREAT JOY 267 

III 

Beneath the bride's attire 

Her heart stands still — 
Half-way from porch to choir — 

For joy, not ill 
(We shiver before fire 

As well as chill). 



IV 

Home-bound, beyond the bar 

I heard again, 
An exile from afar, 

The tide's refrain : 
What did the moment mar? 

Ah! 't was not pain. 



Well may the victor shrink 

Aghast at Fame 
To hear, on Fortune's brink, 

His land's acclaim, 
That with its great doth link 

His own strange name. 



268 THE DREAD BEFORE GREAT JOY 



VI 



We raise the precious bowl- 
To sip and sigh : 

The starving takes but dole 
Lest he may die ; 

Must, then, the famished soul 
Its feast put by? 

VII 

What if our mortal fear 

Were but the dread 
Before great joy! How near 

Were the loved dead! 
Then were the grave more dear 

Than bridal bed. 



REINCARNA TION 



269 



REINCARNATION 

" Another world! Another life! " we cry, 

And for new chances toward far regions reach ; 

Yet squander teeming treasure as we sigh, 
While every day a new life waits for each. 



270 



PREMONITIONS 



PREMONITIONS 

There 's a shadow on the grass 
That was never there before ; 
And the ripples as they pass 
Whisper of an unseen oar ; 
And the song we knew by rote 
Seems to falter in the throat, 
And a footfall, scarcely noted, lingers near the open 
door. 

Omens that were once but jest 
Now are messengers of fate ; 
And the blessing held the best 

Cometh not or comes too late. 
Yet, whatever life may lack, 
Not a blown leaf beckons back, 
" Forward!" is the summons. " Forward! where the 
new horizons wait" 



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